The researchers’ survey of the EEG measurements found a decrease in the theta activity and an increase in gamma just prior to the patient’s death. He added, “Just before and after the heart stopped working, we saw changes in a specific band of neural oscillations, so-called gamma oscillations, but also in others such as delta, theta, alpha, and beta oscillations.” Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville, Kentucky in the U.S., who organized the study said in a statement. “We measured 900 seconds of brain activity around the time of death and set a specific focus to investigate what happened in the 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating,” said Dr. Different types of oscillations indicate different types of brain activity including dreaming, concentrating, processing, and remembering. The oscillations are given Greek letter designations like alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and theta waves. These brain waves are part of normal human brain functioning. It is the first time the activity of a dying human brain has ever been documented. However, the EEG was still recording and captured the entire death process. The patient’s deterioration and death all happened unexpectedly. After a discussion with family members and in consideration of the patient’s “Do Not Resuscitate” status, the team administered no further treatment and he died. The patient worsened suddenly and suffered a heart attack. The researchers report that an 87-year-old patient was stable for two days after surgery. Subdural hematomas can be life-threatening and typically require surgical intervention. In the case of this patient, the EEG was being used to monitor seizures while the patient was recovering during treatment for an acute subdural hematoma, a serious condition where blood collects between the skull and the surface of the brain after a head injury. The EEG monitors brain activity more formally known as brain oscillations, often called brain waves. Raul Vicente of the University of Tartu, Estonia, and colleagues was treating an 87-year-old male patient suffering from epilepsy using a technique called continuous electroencephalography (EEG). The research might be described as accidental, much like finding an archeological trove in a backyard or an unprecedented set of dinosaur bones on a hike after a storm.ĭr. “A higher proportion of people may have vivid death experiences but do not recall them due to the effects of brain injury or sedative drugs on memory circuits,” the study said.TWH – The old maxim that your life flashes before your eyes before death might actually be true according to researchers who, by chance, picked up unusual brain patterns on a dying patient. In their case, they learned that even more people could be experiencing these flashbacks from cardiac arrest, when your heart stops altogether, or from other severe health conditions. They say these encounters are typically seen as hallucinations or illusions because research is so finite on the taboo subjects. In the U.K., doctors looked at out of body experiences (OBEs) and near-death experiences, too. READ MORE: What happens to your brain when you fall in love This isn’t the first time scientists zeroed in on near-death experiences and having your life flash before your eyes. Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I could individually go into each person and I could feel the pain that they had in their life … I was allowed to see that part of them and feel for myself what they felt," one volunteer said. I was not in time/space so this question also feels impossible to answer,” one respondent said, according to the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper. “There is not one linear progression, there is lack of time limits … it was like being there for centuries. READ MORE: Hoping to stay friends with an ex? Here’s why you need to read this study first They couldn’t quantify how long these flashbacks were – short or long. The group admitted, in what felt like final moments, time was no longer a tangible measurement. This suggests that a representation of life events as a continuum exists in the cognitive system, and may be further expressed in extreme conditions of psychological and physiological stress,” the authors wrote.Īfter listening to the interviews, the scientists pulled together a questionnaire to send to 264 other people who also went through near-death experiences. “Re-experiencing one’s own life events, so-called LRE, is a phenomenon with well-defined characteristics, and its subcomponents may also be evidenced in healthy people.
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