I met a perfectly lovely young woman this weekend who told me that when she was a teenager she took Ecstasy, snorted coke, and inhaled pot as if it were dim sum on a Sunday morning.
So I found myself relieved beyond the effects of a hot stone massage to discover that research on teenage girls has shown that when they play Tetris it has a wonderfully positive effect on their brains.
The Mind Research Network, which appears to be a nonprofit organization that examines brain injury and mental illness, decided to spend three months of its life and donations on watching what happens when teenage girls play Tetris.
The network's scientists seem giddy about the results: consistent practice on the pleasantly mind-numbing little game seems to have given the girls a thicker cortex, as well as creating more brain efficiency in other parts of their tender gray areas.
Now, I'm not sure that every teenage girl on earth will be excited about having a thicker cortex, but the brain of Dr. Rex Jung, one of the boffins behind this experiment, is veritably bursting with joy.
"We did our Tetris study to see if mental practice increased cortical thickness, a sign of more gray matter," Dr. Jung said Monday in a press statement.
(Credit:
Cc TotalAldo/Flickr)
He continued: "If it did, it could be an explanation for why previous studies have shown that mental practice increases brain efficiency. More gray matter in an area could mean that the area would not need to work as hard during Tetris play."
Essentially, the excitement engendered by this little game playing seems to revolve around the notion that the brain's structure is not as fixed as scientists of old had assumed.
However, I feel I need now explore the frisson of doubt that overcomes me every time I read research. You see, this study does not help us discover the actual relationship between a thicker cortex and increased brain efficiency.
How might I know this? Why, because I read the smaller print, in which Dr. Richard Haier, a co-investigator of the Tetrisettes, said: "How a thicker cortex and increased brain efficiency are related remains a mystery."
You see, the functioning of teenage girls' brains is, as one has always thought, an utter befuddlement.
While the scientists claim that they used girls in the study because boys tend to have too much video game experience, I am now wondering just one thing: were these Tetrisettes drug-tested?
I know you might think this is far fetched. I know you may think I only meet lovely girls who are strange and tell outlandish tales of teenage drug use.
But, you see, there were only 26 girls in this study. And if I'm to believe that the actions of teenage girls will somehow inform our knowledge of the brain, I want them tested for coke, pot, E, and, definitely, crystal meth.
Interestingly, the study's notes say that none of the girls was taking a prescription medication. But neither were so many baseball players in the 1990s.
Perhaps my zeal for scientific purity, otherwise known as my skepticism, may be excessive here.
But perhaps it was made excessive by some small print in the study. I know your cortex will become thinner on receiving this information, but the study was funded by "Blue Planet Software (BPS), Inc., the company holding exclusive licensing rights to Tetris".
There are those who believe that computer games cause trauma rather than soothe it.
Scientists from Oxford University would like to spank that theory with a shovel, throw it to the ground, and kick it till it's unconscious.
In a piece of research that would not seem out of place on an episode of House, Oxford psychologists believe they have taken the first steps in showing that a concerted finger-waggle of your Tetris could help you forget the maniac who plowed straight into you at 60 miles an hour, the contorted features of the insane lover who just smashed your skull with a frying pan, and the one-night stand you should never have had after leaving Dan's Oyster Bar and Lapdancing Club.
Because I know readers of Technically Incorrect are an unruly, skeptical crowd, I should be clear about the Oxfordians methodology. The researchers showed their researchees ugly images of nasty accidents, crushed-up skulls, and bloody entrails from various sources.
Then they asked half of them to play Tetris, while the other half apparently did nothing. In Oxford, that probably means reading a little Dostoyevsky while sipping a Pimms.
The Tetris players apparently suffered significantly fewer nasty memories of those ugly images than did those who were left idle. The researchers are extrapolating that this might help people deal with post- traumatic stress disorder.
I cannot be sure that this woman, who is playing Tetris DS, has suffered a head trauma. But, yes, those are socks on her head.
(Credit: CC Mache)The logic, according to Dr. Emily Holmes of Oxford University's psychiatric department, may be that Tetris simply blocks the mind from storing painful memories.
There is, however, a small catch. You must play immediately after your car accident or encounter with the frying pan.
The Daily Telegraph quoted Holmes as explaining that "Tetris may work by competing for the brain's resources for sensory information. We suggest it specifically interferes with the way sensory memories are laid down in the period after trauma and thus reduces the number of flashbacks that are experienced afterwards."
If you're wondering why they chose Tetris rather than, say, World of Warcraft or Grant Theft Auto, apparently Tetris requires the use of a significant chunk of the mind.
Of course, some could argue that Grand Theft Auto--where you are actually, in some instances, left for dead--might demand a rather larger portion of mindspace than moving a few colored building blocks with a sound effect more annoying than your serially-divorced history teacher from high school.
Still, all of us have traumas: some work-related, some relationship-related, and some inflicted upon us by a world that just doesn't understand us. We spend every day wishing we could put this stuff behind us.
I therefore fully expect Tetris sales to triple within days of this post appearing.
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