For all of us that grew up during the 1990's spending countless hours playing Game Boy, the legendary tile-matching puzzle video game named Tetris is kind of sacred.

Designed by Soviet Alexey Pajitnov, the game was first released back in 1984 and went on becoming the best-selling video game in history with more than 175 million copies sold and downloaded since then. Furthermore, Electronic Gaming Monthly' s 100th issue named Tetris the "Greatest Game of All Time".

However, the epic game's contributions to our kind appears to be way more significant than one may think. At least, this is what scientists from Sweden have concluded!

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Apparently, playing the famous video game can help certain individuals to avoid post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as a new study suggests.

Scientists from the Karolinska Medical University in Sweden, conducted a study which showed that people who had non-fatal car accidents presented less distressing “flashbacks,” if they played Tetris soon after they were taken to hospital.

More than seventy car accident victims were examined during the study, with half of them not being able to recall the traumatic experience clearly, after they played Tetris while waiting in the hospital’s emergency room.

The scientists also noticed that the patients who played Tetris experimentally, had fewer "invasive" memories of the accident a week later compared to those who didn't play the game within six hours of the accident. For that reason, experts now speculate that playing a visually demanding video game soon after a harmful event, could put a stop to the "invasive" characteristics of a traumatic experience in a sufferer's mind.

Emily Holmes, a Professor of Psychology at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience and director of the study, told Time:

"Anyone can experience trauma. It would make a huge difference to a great many people if we could create simple behavioral psychological interventions using computer games to prevent post-traumatic suffering and spare them these grueling intrusive memories.”

Despite the evident success of the study, however, researchers agree that further studies and tests need to take place in order to find out if there are long-term psychological benefits of playing Tetris after having a traumatic experience.

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In case you enjoyed the Wacky Fact you just read, check out my article: How video games evolved to solve significant scientific problems for Ars Technica. After all, it was the article that pretty much funded my trip to New York ;)

References:

Playing Tetris Can Reduce PTSD Symptoms, Study Says

Post-traumatic stress symptoms can be prevented by using Tetris in the emergency department

Playing 'Tetris' After Trauma May Reduce Bad Flashbacks

Tetris Shown to Lessen PTSD and Flashbacks

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