Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a profound
disturbance in the mind of soldiers that have had deeply violent and disturbing
experiences. Morphine is an opiate used
to control pain. Tetris is an addictive
game with pretty colors. How are they
all connected?
Morphine is used right after a severe injury
happened on the battlefield. It is used
to dull both pain and anxiety. According to a study done at Naval Health
Research Center in San Diego, patients who received morphine on the battlefield were less likely to develop
PTSD.
According to a study done at Oxford University,
Tetris can also be used to treat PTSD. In the study, all participants were
shown a violent video. Half of the participants had to play Tetris after
watching the video, the other half did not. At a check-up a week later, the
participants who played Tetris reported fewer flashbacks from the violent
video.
As an avid Tetris player, this is not much of a
surprise. To get the best high score, it is almost mandatory to not look away
from the screen, making sure you plan out your next few moves every time
another “Tetrimino” (a group of four colored blocks) is in its place. Playing the game takes full concentration –
violent images from a movie would have no room in their working memory to haunt
anyone playing. Tetris required their entire concentration, preventing any
images of the violent films stick in their head, and therefore proving (at
least proven in this particular study) that Tetris can prevent PTSD.
I found this really interesting! I'd be interested to see how veterans react to this therapy, as their PTSD is probably much more ingrained than someone who had watched a violent, 2-minute film.
ReplyDeleteNow, is it the distraction away from the video that helps participants suppress the stress resulting from the video, or is it the order that Tetris provides for people who have experienced such chaos and violence? Tetris is a very rational game and involves quite a bit planning - and therefore prefrontal cortex activity. This kind of activity is consuming and calming.
Plus, I'm not exactly sure if drugs on the battlefield or drugs in general are the best treatment for such a debilitating disorder... It could promote an addiction. Instead, I'm interested on finding out what other qualities Tetris has that could point to why patients had less flashbacks than the control group. Maybe there's another aspect to the game that is causing the participants to forget their traumatic experience.
It sounds like this needs to be experimented further, but it's definitely cool!
PTSD is fascinating to me as a research area. I think this is because, much unlike many other psychopathologies, it has a very clear environmental cause (the traumatic event(s)). Of course, it has been shown that people could have a biological predisposition to developing PTSD, as with most psychological illnesses, but the main factor in the disease IS the traumatic event.
ReplyDeleteThis study, though using a novel treatment paradigm (Tetris), is very similar to many other studies on PTSD and how to prevent it. One of the main ways that the prevention of PTSD is theorized to occur is through the disruption of the process of reconsolidation. As we now know, reconsolidation is essential for a memory to have a lasting place in long-term memory. I could be wrong, but I believe that Tetris, in this study, is acting as that interrupter of reconsolidation. It takes concentration and spatial reasoning, and it seems to me that maybe these things prevent reconsolidation from occurring through diverting the brain to another task.
I agree with Eric that watching a violent, 2-minute film is fairly far-removed from an intensely physical traumatic event. But I think that it pulls from a wide range of similar studies into this disorder. Of course, further research must be done in order to figure out the exact neural mechanisms behind this effect and also how to apply this research to practical situations. But very interesting study!