A study published in the journal Psychological Science shows that playing the famous (and vintage) Tetris game helps patients alleviate their traumatic memories. When an event is particularly traumatic, intense memories indeed come back, with more or less frequency (post traumatic stress).
Intrusive and painful flashbacks, which it would therefore be possible to mitigate. A group of researchers from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) found that playing Tetris within six hours of a traumatic event (the time for the brain to consolidate the memory of any event), reduced by following these flashbacks! And if this is not possible immediately after the shock, playing to build a virtual wall with bricks even 24 hours later also reduces the resurgence of memories.
How does it work? The researchers explained that this video game requires the rapid processing of visual information, which somewhat disturbs the processing of other images related to the traumatic event. Of course, this does not erase it, but the memory will be visually less vivid.
They are therefore now studying other similar games to try to set up a new preventive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. It will take more studies before Tetris is offered as a preventive treatment in emergency rooms or at the police station, but these results are always good to know:so we download Tetris, just in case… (or we pulls out his old Game Boy).
