According to a recent study, it is not impossible that our life flashes before our eyes before we die. Researchers from different countries have described the first-ever recording of a dying brain. Now, this activity would be quite comparable to dreaming and remembering.
Surely everyone has heard of near death experiences. Witnesses describe their visions and sensations after experiencing advanced coma or clinical death preceding a return to life. Some individuals would have seen their own life pass by or even a light at the end of a tunnel and possibly felt a feeling of peace and tranquility. Logically unverifiable, these accounts may contain some truth according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in aging neuroscience on February 22, 2022.
Neurologists from several countries claim to have recorded the activity of a dying brain. However, this same activity would be similar to the process of dreaming or remembering . However, the researchers in question believe that the discovery is the result of chance. It must be said that initially, this work was not intended to measure brain activity at the time of death. Indeed, it was simply a matter of monitoring brain waves in one particular patient, namely an 87-year-old man with epilepsy. Only, lo and behold, the patient had a heart attack and lost his life during the analyses.
Thus, this unplanned accident made it possible to record no less than fifteen minutes of brain activity at the time of death. Nevertheless, neurologists have focused their attention precisely on the thirty seconds before and after the heart stops. The results then show an increase in activity at the level of the cerebral waves (the gamma oscillations ). However, these same oscillations also occur when we dream, call on our memories or when we meditate. The feeling of seeing one's life pass by that the testimonies of near-death experiences describe would thus be explained in this way.
The scientists also clarified that their observations confirm the brain's ability to coordinate even after the blood has stopped circulating in the body. In addition, you should know that this activity of gamma waves is not completely new. Indeed, the process was already known in rats, but this is the first time it has been observed in humans.
Is this an important discovery to better understand the mystery of death? Maybe. Regardless, the researchers emphasized that their data comes from a single case study . It is therefore too insufficient to draw formal and definitive conclusions, so much so that other studies of the kind could see the light of day in the more or less near future.
