This Retro Game Reduces PTSD Symptoms 90% (M)
One simple game is proving to be a surprising hero in the fight against PTSD.
Category: PTSD
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Why Traumatic Memories Are So Hard To Suppress
PTSD is thought to affect around one-third of people who experience a traumatic event.
PTSD is thought to affect around one-third of people who experience a traumatic event.
People who have experienced traumas find it harder to suppress emotional memories, research reveals.
The reason could be neural disruption in areas of the brain linked to suppressing memories.
The study helps to explain why people exposed to car accidents, medical issues or other traumas continue to relive emotional memories.
People with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) find memories of a traumatic event continue to intrude and incapacitate them.
This happens even when they try to suppress the memory.
The conclusions come from a study of 48 people, some with PTSD, some who had been exposed to trauma, but not developed PTSD, and a control group.
Everyone was shown pictures and asked to suppress some of them.
The results showed that people who had been exposed to traumas found it harder to suppress the memory than the control group.
Dr Danielle R. Sullivan, the study’s first author, explained the results of brain scans conducted alongside the behavioural test:
“Neuroimaging data revealed that trauma-exposed individuals showed reduced activation in the right middle frontal gyrus, a critical region for memory suppression, during a memory suppression task and were less likely to successfully suppress memory compared to non-trauma exposed individuals.
These results suggest that trauma exposure is associated with neural and behavioral disruptions in memory suppression and point to the possibility that difficulty in active suppression of memories may be just one of several likely factors contributing to the development of PTSD.”
PTSD can be a result of a road accident, a violent personal assault, serious medical problems or other traumatic events.
People experiencing PTSD may have trouble sleeping and difficulty concentrating.
PTSD is thought to affect around one-third of people who experience a traumatic event.
PTSD is usually treated by either ‘watchful waiting’, antidepressants or psychological therapies.
The study was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research (Sullivan et al., 2019).
A Game That Fades Away Traumatic Thoughts
The therapy was effective for 16 of the 20 patients in the study.
The therapy was effective for 16 of the 20 patients in the study.
Playing Tetris — a retro tile-matching puzzle game — can substantially reduce traumatic thoughts, research finds.
People in the study first wrote down their stressful memory on a piece of paper.
Then, they tore it up and played Tetris on a tablet for 25 minutes.
The results showed that flashbacks to the traumatic memory reduced by 64%.
It is thought that recalling the memory, then playing Tetris, is the key to how the therapy works.
The computer game interferes with the memory trace of the traumatic memory and weakens it — resulting in fewer flashbacks.
Dr Henrik Kessler, the study’s first author, said:
“PTSD can be treated well using the therapies available.
However, there are many more patients than therapy places.
That’s why the researchers are looking for methods outside conventional treatments that can relieve the symptoms.”
The study involved 20 patients experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — all had been hospitalised.
The researchers only targeted a specific memory.
The results showed that patients’ flashbacks for other traumatic memories were unaffected by playing Tetris.
This suggests the study technique was really working on the specific memory, rather than being a placebo effect.
The therapy was effective for 16 of the 20 patients in the study.
Dr Kessler hopes to confirm the technique’s effectiveness in larger, controlled studies:
“In our study, the intervention was supervised by a team member, but he did not play an active role and did not read the written traumatic memories.
Our hope is that we will be able to derive a treatment that people could perform on their own to help them cope, even if there are no places available for therapy.
However, the intervention cannot replace complex trauma therapy, but can only alleviate a central symptom, flashbacks.”
The study was published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Kessler et al., 2018).
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