A simple computer game has been found to help trauma victims through painful memories and flashbacks, typical of those suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

Researchers based at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet examined volunteers who had witnessed video footage of real traumatic events, including deadly accidents, and then had some of them play the game Tetris to help them clear their mind of traumatic “intrusive” memories and images, KTIC radio reports.

They found who played Tetris 24 hours after seeing a film containing disturbing video footage reported fewer “intrusive” memories in the days after their first viewing.

“From Marcel Proust’s example of sudden childhood recall after eating a madeleine to flashbacks depicted in war films, involuntary memory has long held fascination,” said the researchers, who published their findings in the journal Psychological Science. “The current work bridges a clinical area of public concern (trauma viewing) with animal and human neuroscience.”