Needless to say, death is the most profound and mysterious aspect of life for most of us. We all know that we are going to die, but don’t know how and when. More so, it is hard to tell what a dying person experiences when they die because the secret goes with them. However, scientists have now successfully captured the brain activity of a dying person, offering an insight into what happens to our brain when we die, Daily Mail reported. Their study suggests that our lives really do flash before our eyes in our final moments, a phenomenon that has been well documented before.
Notably, scientists were studying the brain of an 87-year-old epilepsy patient using an electroencephalography (EEG) device to detect the seizures and treat him. During these recordings, the patient had a heart attack and passed away. This unexpected event allowed the scientists to record the activity of a dying human brain for what they believe is the first time ever.
What actually happens to a dying brain?
According to a paper published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, the researchers found that as the person was dying, rhythmic brain wave patterns were observed to be similar to those occurring during memory retrieval, as well as dreaming and meditation. Basically, we do relive our entire life in the space of seconds like a flash of lightning just prior to death, known as life recall. Researchers also noted that our brain may remain active and coordinated during and after the transition to death, and may even be programmed to ‘orchestrate the whole ordeal’.
“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,” said Dr Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville, US, who organised the study.
“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,” Zemmar speculated. Apart from understanding what the brain does as a person dies, the new study could also offer better understanding of the timing of organ donation.