VANCOUVER: A new study has given some ideas what happens when we die. New data from a scientific “accident” has suggested that life may actually flash before our eyes as we die.
Scientists unintentionally recorded the brain activity of a dying 87 year-old man providing an insight into what happens to our brain when we die. The elderly man was admitted to hospital after a fall and developed epilepsy. Dr Raul Vicente of the University of Tartu, Estonia and his colleagues used continuous electroencephalography (EEG) to detect the seizures and treat the patient.
During the neurological recording, he suffered a fatal heart attack – offering an unexpected recording of a dying brain. It revealed that in the 30 seconds before and after, the man’s brainwaves followed the same patterns as dreaming or recalling memories.
Brain activity of this sort could suggest that a final “recall of life” may occur in a person’s last moments, the team wrote in their study, published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience journal.
Dr Ajmal Zemmar, a co-author of the study, said that what the team, then based in Vancouver, Canada, accidentally got, was the first-ever recording of a dying brain. “This was actually totally by chance, we did not plan to do this experiment or record these signals,” he said. Dr Zemmar said it was impossible to tell if we get a glimpse back at time with loved ones and other happy memories?
“If I were to jump to the philosophical realm, I would speculate that if the brain did a flashback, it would probably like to remind you of good things, rather than the bad things,” he said. “But what’s memorable would be different for every person.”
Dr Zemmar said in the 30 seconds before the patient’s heart stopped supplying blood to the brain, his brainwaves followed the same patterns as when we carry out high-cognitive demanding tasks, like concentrating, dreaming or recalling memories.
It continued 30 seconds after the patient’s heart stopped beating – the point at which a patient is typically declared dead. “This could possibly be a last recall of memories that we’ve experienced in life, and they replay through our brain in the last seconds before we die.”
The study also raises questions about when, exactly, life ends – when the heart stops beating, or the brain stops functioning. Dr Zemmar and his team have cautioned that broad conclusions can’t be drawn from a study of one. The fact that the patient was epileptic, with a bleeding and swollen brain, complicates things further.
“I never felt comfortable to report one case,” Dr Zemmar said. And for years after the initial recording in 2016, he looked for similar cases to help strengthen the analysis but was unsuccessful.
A 2013 study carried out on healthy rats may offer a clue. US researchers reported high levels of brainwaves at the point of the death until 30 seconds after the rats’ hearts stopped beating – just like the findings found in Dr Zemmar’s epileptic patient.
The similarities between studies are “astonishing”, Dr Zemmar said. They now hope the publication of this one human case may open the door to other studies on the final moments of life.
“I think there’s something mystical and spiritual about this whole near-death experience,” Dr Zemmar said. “And findings like this – it’s a moment that scientists lives for.”
