Tetris and your Brain

An orginization called the "Mind Research Network" took 26 adolesent girls. Every day they would play Tetris for 30 mins. The girls would be given structual and funcitonal MRI scans before and after each gaming session. After a while the girls started to show improvement in their brain activity.

(Red shows growth in cortex, while blue shows improvement of efficiency)


The reserchers began to notice that the cortex of the left frontol lobe was getting thicker in each test subject. This part of the brain is believed to be responsible for our visual, tactile, auditory, and internal physiological information.

They also noticed more efficiency in the right frontal lobe. This is where critical thinking, language, reasoning, and processing take place.

“We were excited to see cortical thickness differences between the girls that practiced Tetris and those that did not,” said Dr. Richard Haier (thanks to sciencedaily.com for the quote)

This doesnt really come as a surprise to many. Many studies have proven that people who play first person shooters are better drivers, and have far better hand eye coordination, timing, and processing when doing multiple activities.

(screenshot of a ten player Tetris round)


Dr. Emily Holmes led a study about the "Tetric Effect". She found that patients with anterograde amnesia (the loss of ability to create memories) would have dreams of falling shapes after playing Tetris that day. Even though they are unable to remember that they played the game at all. They also found that games like Tetris can prevent traumatic experiences. Certain subjects were given the game Tetris to play after a traumatic experience, they found that concentrating on the shapes prevented them from mentally recreating the traumatic images in their head. They found it decreased the accuracy, intensity and frequency of the traumatic memories.

"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.", summarizes Dr. Emily Holmes (thanks too Peer-reviewed science for the quote)