Taking the mind off from memories caused by extremely traumatic experiences is not an easy thing. A patient suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has to undergo all sorts of treatments like therapy, medication, lifestyle changes and the like.
Who would have thought that simple Tetris blocks can help bury those memories away?
Researchers at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge conducted an experiment and discovered that playing the visual game aids in reducing the intrusiveness of emotional memories from day-prior events. Findings of this study are further explained as published in the online journal Psychological Science.
According to the study's lead author Emily Holmes, this research is the first to their knowledge to show how a simple cognitive blockade reduces intrusive memories of experimental trauma, through a memory reconsolidation process.
In the experiment, the researchers asked 56 participants to view films that showed distressing events and then later asked to play Tetris. An example of the films that the participants watched was the one showing public information about the dangers of drunk driving. The following day, half of the participants watched stills from the same films to reactivate their memories. To the researchers, this raised the participants to a state within the brains where they can be modified.
Next, all of the participants engaged in a 10-minute activity that was entirely unrelated to the films they watched.
After the activity, the group was again divided into two. The first half who had their memories reactivated played the Nintendo video game for 12 minutes. The second half did not do anything while the rest were playing the game.
The researchers found that the group that played the video game had fewer memories of the films by 51percent. The same group of participants also answered questionnaires normally used for diagnosing PTSD and scored lower.
The results generally remained the same as the participants were monitored for a week.
In 2009, Holmes led the same team to discover that playing Tetris just four hours after a traumatic incident could also help reduce these intrusive memories. At the time, however, it was difficult to further test the idea, as victims of traumatic incidents found it very impractical to have to play a video game just after the incident.
In this latest successful study, the researchers finally concluded that video games like Tetris require the brain to quickly process visual information, therefore helping disturb the imagery related to traumatic events. While the memory remains in the brain, Tetris helps blur the information from the mind's eye.
Photo: Andromarche | Flickr James Whatley | Flickr
