Reuters - Computer puzzle may ease post-traumatic stress
Scientists showed 40 healthy subjects videos involving traumatic injuries and violence and then waited 30 minutes, then made half play Tetris for 10 minutes, the control did nothing special. They then tracked the subjects over a week and discovered that the control had far more image flashbacks to the videos than those who played Tetris. The theory is that the visual activity employed in playing the game competes with the parts of the brain that try to encode sensory memories like traumatic images. If the images aren't encoded into memory, the likelihood of flashback later is greatly reduced.
2 comments:
I LOVE playing tetris on my DS. Any avid tetris player will tell you that after prolonged periods of play, one starts to see everything in the real world as blocks that can be fit together.
I wonder though, wouldn't their study be a bit more convincing if they had an additional control group that played a different video game (such as grand theft auto) that did NOT interfere in their perseveration on the traumatic images?
I agree. Or maybe try boring game like sim-city. I'm going to start playing tetris after ALL distressing things in my life-- maybe it is a universal cure-all?
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