In our relentless pursuit for knowledge, there are some questions and mysteries that are much more difficult to decipher than others. And the question of death is arguably the most difficult of all. What really happens when the end comes?
Can we ever be completely sure until we ourselves reach that point? These are problems that human beings have always wrestled with, but have we finally been given a glimpse of the truth? This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: Did scientists just discover what happens when we die?
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And ring the bell for more thought-provoking content! Unsurprisingly, there have been countless studies into death over the years. But also, and understandably, there are various ethical considerations which make the business of analyzing and measuring death a little tricky.
Death comes to us all, but it’s often unexpected… and, even in a hospital setting, the focus at the moment of death is usually on trying to keep the dying person alive, rather than recording precisely how death unfolds for them. In February 2022, however, news broke of an accidental recording of a dying brain, which reportedly has given scientists a unique snapshot into a person’s final moments. Although details of the recording were released in 2022, the event in question actually took place six years earlier, in 2016.
An 87-year-old patient in Canada was then being treated for epilepsy, which involved doctors taking brain scans to measure his neural activity. However, when the patient unfortunately suffered a heart attack and died during one such scan, it meant that researchers had captured a unique series of moments within his brain - before, during and after death. With around 900 seconds of brain activity measured in total, analysts were subsequently able to specifically pinpoint thirty seconds before (and thirty seconds after) the patient passed away.
And what they found appeared to support a long-held theory about dying… that your life flashes before your eyes. According to the study, published in the journal “Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience”, the dying brain showed an increase in gamma activity, releasing brain waves that are ordinarily linked to memory recall. The patterns that were recorded also relate to complex functions such as dreaming and meditation.
The suggestion is, then, that when death arrives the brain perhaps does embark on the phenomenon sometimes known as life recall. . .
and, in the case of this particular patient, it may last for up to thirty seconds after the heart stops beating. Up until now, most of what’s known about this comes from the testament of those who have had a near-death experience. The sensation of having revisited key moments from their lives is one of the most often reported by anyone describing an NDE.
Scientists have also seen similar gamma surges in the brains of dying animals such as rats during testing, but this latest study offers a unique look at what happens to the human brain. Importantly, those behind the findings highlight that this is still just one case study, and so the results can’t yet be applied to every brain. The patient had been diagnosed with epilepsy, which may have affected how his particular brain reacted to death.
Similarly, the medications that he had previously taken might’ve had an effect, too. And, as no “normal” brain activity had been measured beforehand to serve as a comparison, it can’t be clearly proven that any of the changes in the dying brain were that dramatically different to the patient’s standard brain activity. As ground-breaking as this study appears to be, then, there are still plenty of questions and mysteries left to be solved.
But, nevertheless, this study could yet serve as one of the most significant moments in our quest to understand the dying brain, and the human brain in general. For many, the twenty-first century is shaping up to be an incredibly important period for neuroscience. We’ve already made important breakthroughs regarding how we understand the senses, and how we view the importance of sleep.
And, thanks to an ever-increasing mass of data, researchers can better than ever before map the brain and identify neurological processes. The human brain is still widely regarded as possibly the most complex single structure in the entire universe… but we’ve also never understood it quite as well as we do today. The Human Connectome Project (or HCP) is perhaps the most ambitious research initiative relating to the brain, overall.
A US state-sponsored effort to map the human brain in its entirety, it was started in 2009, originally with a five-year goal for completion. So massive has the task proven to be, however, that it still hasn’t been finished, thirteen years later in 2022. The scope of the HCP has grown and grown in that time, though, so that it’s now a multi-faceted, international venture.
For example, while part of the project aims to better understand how Alzheimer’s disease and dementia take hold… another concentrates on anxiety disorders, and how they can be identified by how the brain fires. There are also specific studies looking at the human brain at different points of its lifetime, from infancy through to old age. So, while the 2022 “dying brain” study wasn’t directly linked with the HCP, we can see how the results of it have hugely contributed to what’s become an enormous field of research.
But, finally, what can we do with the information that the “dying brain” study has provided? Unlike with so many other areas, it’s not as though scientists are expecting a wealth of new and supporting data to arrive anytime soon, due to the ethical considerations involved. A doctor can’t simply measure a patient’s brain until they die without seriously neglecting their duty for care.
And, in fact, according to some reports, one of the reasons why it took until 2022 for details to be released of a brain recording from 2016… is because researchers have been trying to find another, similar case in the meantime, but without any luck. This one glimpse of the dying brain is an exceptionally rare event, then. And, while we might expect more examples to emerge as technology improves and evolves, for now it has set something of a new precedent.
Until now, the notion of a dying person’s life flashing before their eyes has perhaps been treated somewhat skeptically. No matter how many near-death experiences are reported, the apparent similarities between them are often put down to things like stress of the event, misremembering, or confirmation bias. It’s said that patients may recall certain aspects of an NDE only because that’s what they had previously expected would happen during one.
But now there appears to be genuine scientific findings to support the claims. The idea of “life recall” may no longer be so easily dismissed, as we know that in at least this one case the areas of the brain involved with memory recollection were particularly stimulated right at the end of life. Unfortunately, what this study cannot do is stop death in its tracks.
The search for immortality goes on across all sectors of science and technology. But one consideration might be whether this latest development will lead to us managing death a little differently in the future? As the Human Connectome Project, amongst other things, seeks to better equip us to fight against various neurological conditions that can affect the human brain… if we’re now getting a grip on the brain activity of death itself, then might we soon try to tackle that, as well?
If not to prevent it, then at least to ensure that when death does come, we can shape how it affects our final moments? For now, perhaps there is some comfort already to be found. Although this remains just one case study, and many of the conclusions to draw from it are still hypothetical, the suggestion is that when we leave this life… we do so in a dream-like state of memory recall.
For one patient, at least, the brain activity during death appeared to stimulate these kinds of reflective, recollective final thoughts. And that’s why, to some extent, scientists might’ve discovered what happens when we die. Or, at least, they might’ve discovered a little bit more… about a small part of it.
But, of course, there is still so much about dying that remains a mystery. And there are so many metaphysical questions about the soul, spirit, mind, and body that will continue to stoke debate. It’s human nature to ponder our own mortality from time to time, and perhaps it’s unsurprising that there have been various efforts made to beat death, over the years.
But, equally, while all of that’s happening, it’s crucial to also make the most of life. To fully experience every moment as best we can… because if the incredibly complex structure of the human brain tells us anything, it’s that our lives are truly a unique and amazing opportunity. What do you think?
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