Scientists from the University of Michigan published an intriguing article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In the article, the scientists detail how they detected a wave of unknown and mysterious brain activity in the brains of dying people.
The activity recorded as a short-lived burst of gamma activity similar to those seen in previous research that recorded the brain waves of a dying person last year. The discovery unlocks more information about how the human brain reacts in tragic circumstances.
They recorded the mysterious brain activity when four patients were taken off life support. They recorded the activity of two of the four patients, which could help scientists better understand the parallels between a dying human brain and the brains of animals like rats, which have already been studied.
The belief is that these flickers of activity when the brain dies could be what we often call “near-death experiences”, things like the flash of your life before your eyes, something many believe happens before you die. . Of course, proving the existence of such mental movies isn’t easy, but it’s something scientists have set out to do.
And this new research into mysterious brain activity could be a step in the right direction, at least when it comes to understanding how the brain reacts in the last moments before death. That’s why the researchers looked at how brain activity changed before doctors removed patients from life support as well as after.
At this time, however, activity is not necessarily evidence of elevated conscious processing in patients. Yes, it seems to suggest as such, but it doesn’t quite demonstrate it. Perhaps future research in the same area will produce additional results and information.