The death of an 87-year-old man who suffered a heart attack during an encephalogram has provided unprecedented data on the processes at work in the brain at the time of death.
For the first time, scientists have been able to observe and record the last seconds of brain activity of a dying man. While undergoing an electroencephalogram, an 87-year-old patient with epilepsy suffered a fatal heart attack. Thanks to the electrodes connected to his brain, the doctors have 15 minutes of recordings which cover the period preceding and following his death. Never before has such complete data been collected, for obvious ethical reasons. Until now the most successful research on the processes at work in the brain at the time of death had been carried out on rats.
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And this half-open door to death has led to astonishing discoveries reported in a study published by the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience which join the testimonies of people who have experienced an NDE (near death experience).
In the 30 seconds before and following the heart stops, scientists have observed a massive intensification of a very specific type of brain waves, gamma waves, associated with dreaming, recalling memories and meditation. This phenomenon suggests that a dying person enters a peaceful state, close to dreaming and meditative contemplation.
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“By generating the waves involved in memory work, it is possible that the brain initiates a final recall of important life events just before we die, similar to those reported in near-death experiences,” explains neurosurgeon Ajmal Zemmar, director of this study.
But unearthing this process raises complex and tricky questions, adds Ajmal Zemma: “Our data provide the first evidence that the dying human brain has the capacity to generate coordinated activity during the period of near-death. These results call into question our understanding of the exact moment when life ends and raise important questions related in particular to the moment of organ donation.
For now, the results of this study should be taken with caution since they only concern one person, who also suffers from epilepsy, a disorder likely to affect the data collected. However, they pave the way for research as disturbing as it is promising on the indecisive border which separates life from death.
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