14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers working at the Oxford University have announced that Tetris, the well-known falling block powered puzzle title, is a good candidate for treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one of the most debilitating psychological conditions of the modern age.
The team is not saying that video games can cure PTSD, but they say that Tetris is very accessible and costs very little, which makes it uniquely suited for treatment where other means are unavailable.
To test their hypothesis, the Oxford team showed a number of subjects a disturbing film and then split them into three groups: one played Tetris, one answered unrelated trivia questions and the other served as the control group, doing nothing.
Subjects who played Tetris reported fewer flashbacks to the disturbing images they have seen than the members of the other two groups.
Emily Holmes, who led the research team, said that, “the visual-spatial demands of Tetris disrupt the formation of the mental imagery involved in flashbacks.”