As if we need more reason to play video games, Times reporter Melissa Healy has a story about a group that may benefit from getting lost in a good bout of Tetris: soldiers. Healy writes:

Aficionados of the computer-based game Tetris describe the manipulation of its geometric shapes as mind-bending, time-expending and utterly absorbing. But an inoculation against the mental anguish of war memories? Who'd have guessed it?

A study published in the latest issue of the online journal PLoS One found that research subjects who played Tetris in the immediate wake of witnessing a traumatic event were less likely than those who did not play Tetris to experience disturbing, intrusive memories of the horror.

Such distressing flashbacks are a key symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, a psychiatric diagnosis given to as many as 1 in 5 U.S. service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Effective treatments for the disorder -- or better yet, preventive measures -- are in high demand.

In the study, conducted at Oxford University's Department of Psychiatry, 40 subjects between 18 and 47 viewed a 12-minute film that included horrific images of physical injury and death. After a half-hour break during which subjects were kept busy filling out forms, 20 of the subjects were set before a computer screen to play Tetris for 10 minutes. The remaining 20 sat quietly with nothing to do.

Read the full story here.

-- Chris Gaither

Photo credit: Dan Taylor via Flickr