Scientists investigated the effects of death on the human brain and discovered something rather bizarre.
According to a 2022 research study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, the notion that your brain just ceases to function after you die is completely false.
A group of neuroscientists from the University of Tartu in Estonia ended up diving deep into the brain of an epileptic patient.
Dr. Raul Vicente and his team originally employed continuous electroencephalography (EEG) to treat the patient and attempt to identify seizures before they occurred.
However, while under care, the patient suffered a heart attack and died.
Despite the unfortunate occurrence, the scientists proceeded to examine a dying brain for, allegedly, the first time.
“We measured 900 seconds of brain activity around the time of death and set a specific focus to investigate what happened 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating,” said Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville in the United States, who organized the study.
“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.”
They confirmed that the rhythmic brain wave patterns observed during dreaming, memory recall, and meditation were the same at the time of death.
It provided a plausible explanation for why people frequently have vivid life memories during near-death experiences.
The adage ‘life flashing before your eyes’ may hold some truth.
Therefore, real human brains exhibit a variety of brain oscillations, also known as brain waves, which are patterns of rhythmic brain activity.
Gamma oscillations, for example, occur when focusing, dreaming, and processing memory and information.
“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,” according to Zemmar.
“These findings challenge our concept of when life ends and raise crucial follow-up considerations, such as the timing of organ donation.
“As a neurosurgeon, I deal with loss on occasion.
“It is indescribably tough to break the news of death to grieving family members.
“Something we may learn from this research is that 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.”