Imagine if you could re-live your entire life in just a span of a few seconds? In as quick as a lightning flash, it may feel like you’re outside of your body as you watch all the memorable minutes that you’ve gone through. This actually happens, and it has a term too. It’s called ‘life recall’ and it could be compared to people that share they’ve had near-death experiences.
For centuries, neuroscientists have been baffled about what goes on inside your brain when you have a near death experience, as well as what happens afterwards. But recently, a new study believes that your brain could possibly ‘remain active and coordinated during and after the transition to death.’ Moreover, it could possibly be programmed to orchestrate the whole thing too.
Dr. Raul Vicente of the University of Tartu, Estonia, and his colleagues, used continuous electroencephalography (EEG) in an 87-year-old patient that develop epilepsy to detect his seizures and also treat the patient. Despite their efforts, the patient ended up having a heart attack and dying, all the while the scientists were recording. What occurred unexpectedly was the scientists being able to record the activity of the dying human brain for the very first time ever.
The Findings Have Challenged the Common Belief of When Life Ends
Neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville, in the USA, who also organized the study, Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, said, “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.”
“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,” he added.
Brain oscillations, which are more commonly known as “brain waves,” are ‘patterns of rhythmic brain activity normally present in living human brains. The different types of oscillations, including gamma, are involved in high-cognitive functions, such as concentrating, dreaming, meditation, memory retrieval, information processing, and conscious perception, just like those associated with memory flashbacks.’
Zemmar goes on to explain, “Through generating oscillations involved in memory retrieval, the brain may be playing a last recall of important life events just before we die, similar to the ones reported in near-death experiences. These findings challenge our understanding of when exactly life ends and generate important subsequent questions, such as those related to the timing of organ donation.”
It’s Brought a Source of Hope
Although this new study isn’t necessarily the first to measure live brain activity during the process of humans dying, there have been similar changes in gamma oscillations that have been observed before in rats that were kept in controlled environments. What this means is that it’s possible, that during death, the brain actually organizes and completes a biological response that could be maintained across different species.
But they also note that these measurements are based on a single case, and they stem from the brain of a patient that suffered seizures, injury, and swelling, further complicating the interpretation of their data. Regardless, Zemmar still plans to observe and study more cases, which may bring about a source of hope in this field, even if it’s just from one solo case at the moment.
Zemmar said, “As a neurosurgeon, I deal with loss at times. It is indescribably difficult to deliver the news of death to distraught family members. Something we may learn from this research is: although our loved ones have their eyes closed and are ready to leave us to rest, their brains may be replaying some of the nicest moments they experienced in their lives.”
You can find the research study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.
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