New research has revealed intriguing brain wave patterns in comatose patients who died after cardiac arrest. Reports of near-death experiences such as white light stories, visits to deceased loved ones, voices heard, among other features, capture our imagination and are deeply embedded in our cultural landscape.
The fact that these narratives have so many elements in common raises the question of whether there is anything fundamentally real behind them, and whether the postmortem survivors have a consciousness that does not completely disappear even after their heartbeat has stopped.
A new study published May 1, 2023 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides early evidence for a burst of consciousness-related activity in the dying brain.
Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and Neurology, Ph.D. The research, led by Jimo Borjigin and his team, was conducted nearly a decade ago by George Mashur, MD, Ph.D. It follows animal studies carried out in collaboration with .D. is the founding director of consciousness science at the Michigan Center. Similar signs of gamma activation have been noted in the brains of animals and humans during oxygen loss after cardiac arrest.
“It’s a neuroscience paradox how vivid experiences can emerge from a dysfunctional brain during the death process. Mashur, Dr. Borjigin, led an important study that helps shed light on key neurophysiological mechanisms.”
The team identified four patients who died of in-hospital cardiac arrest during EEG monitoring. All four patients were in a coma and unresponsive. They were ultimately determined to stay off medical care and were removed from life support with their families’ permission.
After cessation of mechanical ventilation, two patients showed an increase in heart rate with a burst of gamma wave activity, considered the fastest brain activity and associated with consciousness. In addition, activity was detected in the so-called hot region of the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain, at the junction between the temporal, parietal and occipital lobes at the back of the brain. This area has been associated with dreams, visual hallucinations in epilepsy, and altered states of consciousness in other brain studies.
Collecting EEG data from patients who died in the intensive care unit since 2015, Dr. Collaborating with Borjigin, associate professor of neurology Dr. The other two patients did not have the same increase in heart rate and no increase in brain activity after being removed from life support.
Due to the small sample size, the authors caution against making any global claims about the implications of the results. They also point out that in this study, it was impossible to know what the patients were going through because they did not survive.
“We are unable to correlate the observed neural signatures of consciousness with the corresponding experience of the same patients in this study. But the results are absolutely fascinating and provide new ground for our understanding of the latent consciousness of dying people,” he said. Larger multicenter studies involving patients who survived cardiac arrest with EEG monitoring in the intensive care unit may provide the data needed to determine whether these bursts of gamma activity are evidence of latent consciousness even near death.
Source: Port Altele
