Scientists mistakenly collected their own data on his activities after an elderly patient died suddenly during a routine examination brain At the end of his life: 30 seconds before and after the man’s heart stopped, his brain waves were very similar to what he saw while dreaming, memory Remember and meditate. This suggests that when people die, they may actually see their life “blinking in front of them.”
The phenomenon of regenerating past memories when you die has been reported by some people who have had near-death experiences. But this is the first scientific evidence that this “flash” may be genuine. However, since this is the only case study, it is impossible to make any further assumptions about how common the phenomenon is or what the experience is.
Researchers made a surprising discovery in 2016 while studying the brain activity of a developed 87-year-old Canadian man. Epilepsy.. The team ran an electroencephalogram (EEG), a test that detects abnormalities in the electrical activity of the brain, to learn more about what was happening during his seizures.At that time, the man suddenly became deadly heart attack..The unexpected death of the patient meant that the team accidentally made the first record of a dying brain, researchers. Said in a statement..
Related: 10 things I didn’t know about the brain
In total, researchers recorded about 900 seconds of brain activity before and after the patient’s death. This allowed us to see how his neural oscillations (repetitive patterns of neural activity, also known as brain waves) changed when he was dying. They found that there was an abnormal change in his EEG activity 30 seconds before and after his heart stopped.
In a statement, Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto, Canada, at the time of the male case, “changes were seen in certain bands of neural oscillations immediately before and after the heart failed. “. .. These particular types of vibrations are known as gamma waves, added Zemmar, who is now at the University of Louisville, Kentucky.
Neural oscillations are classified based on their frequency and amplitude. The frequency of gamma waves is 30-100 hertz, the highest frequency of vibration and most commonly observed in the brain when people access the center of memory. Kaiba,In a dream.
The team also collected data on other types of mortal vibrations, including delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves. But it was a gamma wave directed at a man in his brain regenerating memory throughout his life — a phenomenon known as life recollection.
In a statement, Zemar said, “By generating vibrations associated with memory recovery, the brain recollects the last important life event just before we die, similar to what was reported in near-death experiences. It may be. ”
Experiment in Rat The statement indicates that rodents also experience similar levels of gamma oscillations at the time of death. Therefore, researchers speculate that, although there is little evidence to support this, recollection of life may be a universal experience shared by the majority of mammalian dying brains.
However, researchers warned that it was too early to conclude that recollection of life was a real phenomenon. The dying man was old and suffered from epilepsy, which is known to alter gamma wave activity. This may have meant that his brain activity during death was different from that of a person without epilepsy. Moreover, there is no way to know if the man is actually seeing or perceiving his past memories, or if he was in the dreamlike state brought about by his failure. Nervous system..
Therefore, researchers warned that more research is needed to draw concrete conclusions about life recollections.The male case report was not published until six years after his death, as researchers wanted to reveal more case studies of the dying brain to support their claim, but they Came out empty-handed BBC..
But the findings could provide a source of comfort for friends and family during the “indescribably difficult” experience of losing a loved one, researchers said. “Our loved ones are ready to close their eyes and let us rest, but their brains may be replaying some of the most amazing moments they have experienced in life.” Zemmar said in a statement.
The case report was published online in the journal on February 22nd. Frontier of Aging Neuroscience..
Originally published on Live Science.