Thursday, November 11, 2010

PTSD - playing Tetris might protect against stress syndrome


CNN

The rapid-fire visual puzzles that make Tetris so engrossing may also make the video game a promising treatment for post-traumatic stress, a new study suggests.

Recurring, intrusive thoughts of a traumatic event (or events) are one of the hallmark symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a type of anxiety disorder. According to the study, which appears in the journal PLoS ONE, playing Tetris soon after a traumatic experience appears to protect against these flashbacks, by distracting the brain from the event and short-circuiting how upsetting memories and images are stored.

Not just any video game will do. Notably, the study found that games that rely on trivia or language skills don't appear to have the same therapeutic effect as stacking Tetris blocks, probably because they activate different areas of the brain.[...]

1 comment:

  1. We must remember that Tetris was invented as a way for the Soviets to conquer the West. The way they figured it, we'd be so busy playing it we wouldn't notice they'd arrived and taken over.
    Only flaw: they started playing it too so they never got around the invasion.

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