Researchers at the University of Oxford wanted to intervene before those intrusive memories could take hold, using an idea from memory science: a visually demanding task, played soon after the event, might disrupt how the brain locks a traumatic image into long-term memory.
In an emergency department, patients arriving within six hours of a road traffic accident were randomly assigned to either briefly recall the trauma and then play Tetris for about 20 minutes, or to fill out an activity log as a control. Over the following week, the Tetris group reported substantially fewer intrusive memories of the crash than the control group.
The result supported a larger idea that memory consolidation can be interrupted within a narrow window after trauma, using a simple game rather than medication. The trial was small and described by its own authors as a proof-of-concept study, not a definitive treatment; a larger trial powered to confirm the effect, and to check whether it lasts at one month, was called for next.
Read the original study
Iyadurai et al., Molecular Psychiatry, 2018 · doi.org/10.1038/mp.2017.23
A game, timed right, blunted the memory.
Source
- Iyadurai, L., Blackwell, S. E., Meiser-Stedman, R., Watson, P. C., Bonsall, M. B., Geddes, J. R., Nobre, A. C., & Holmes, E. A. (2018). Preventing intrusive memories after trauma via a brief intervention involving Tetris computer game play in the emergency department: a proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial. Molecular Psychiatry, 23(3), 674–682. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2017.23