When you die, your brain stimulates memory recall.
Some questions and mysteries are far more difficult to solve than others in our never-ending quest for knowledge. And perhaps the most difficult of all is the issue of death. What happens when the end arrives? Can we ever be certain until we reach that point ourselves? These are issues that humans have always struggled with. Did scientists just figure out what happens after we die? Countless studies on death have been conducted over the years. However, there are several ethical considerations that make the business of analyzing and measuring death a little tricky. Death comes to all of us, but it is often unexpected, and even in a hospital setting, the focus at the time of death is usually on keeping the dying person alive, rather than recording precisely how death unfolds for them.
However, in February 2022, news broke of an unintentional recording of a dying brain, which reportedly provided scientists with a unique glimpse into a person's final moments. Although the recording was made public in 2022, the event in question occurred six years earlier, in 2016. An 87-year-old patient in Canada was being treated for epilepsy at the time, which included brain scans to measure his neural activity. However, when the patient had a heart attack and died during one of these scans, researchers had recorded a one-of-a-kind sequence of events within his brain - before, during, and after death. With approximately 900 seconds of brain activity measured in total, analysts were able to precisely pinpoint thirty seconds before (and thirty seconds after) the patient died. And what they discovered seemed to support a long-held belief about death: that your life flashes before your eyes.
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The dying brain showed an increase in gamma activity, releasing brain waves normally associated with memory recall, according to the study, which was published in the journal "Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience." The patterns recorded are also related to complex functions like dreaming and meditation. The suggestion is that when death arrives, the brain may engage in a phenomenon known as 'life recall,' which may last for up to thirty seconds after the heart stops beating in the case of this particular patient. Until now, the majority of what we know about this has come from the testimonies of those who have had a near-death experience. One of the most common sensations reported by anyone describing an NDE is the feeling of having revisited key moments in their lives. Similar gamma surges have been observed in the brains of dying animals such as rats during testing, but this latest study provides a unique look at what happens in the human brain.
Importantly, the researchers emphasize that this is still only one case study, and thus the results cannot yet be applied to every brain. The patient was diagnosed with epilepsy, which may have influenced how his brain reacted to death. Similarly, the medications he had previously taken could have had an effect. Because no "normal" brain activity was measured beforehand to serve as a comparison, it cannot be proven that any of the changes in the dying brain were that significantly different from the patient's normal brain activity. As groundbreaking as this study appears to be, there are still many unanswered questions and mysteries. Nonetheless, this study could be one of the most important in our quest to understand the dying brain and the human brain in general.
The twenty-first century is shaping up to be a defining moment in neuroscience. We've already made significant advances in our understanding of the senses and the importance of sleep. And, thanks to an ever-increasing amount of data, researchers can better map the brain and identify neurological processes than ever before. The human brain is still widely regarded as the most complex single structure in the universe, but we've never understood it as well as we do now.
The Human Connectome Project (or HCP) is possibly the most ambitious brain research initiative in general. It began in 2009 as a US government-sponsored effort to map the entire human brain, with a five-year completion goal. However, thirteen years later, in 2022, it is still unfinished. The HCP's scope has expanded since then, and it is now a multifaceted, international venture. Some of the project's goals include better understanding how Alzheimer's disease and dementia develop, while others focus on anxiety disorders and how they can be identified by how the brain fires. There are also studies that look at the human brain at various stages of its life, from infancy to old age.
As a result, the 2022 "dying brain" study was not directly related to the HCP. However, the outcomes have significantly contributed to what has become a massive field of research. What should be done with the information obtained from the "dying brain" study? Due to the ethical considerations involved, scientists do not expect a flood of new and supporting data to arrive anytime soon, as they do in so many other areas.
A doctor cannot simply measure a patient's brain until they die without seriously failing to perform their duty of care. In fact, according to certain reports, one of the reasons it took until 2022 for details on a 2016 brain recording to be released is that researchers were looking for another, similar case in the meantime, but were unsuccessful. This single glimpse of the dying brain is thus an extremely rare occurrence. And, while we can expect more examples to emerge as technology advances and evolves, for the time being, it has established something of a new precedent.
Until now, the idea of a dying person's life flashing before their eyes has been met with skepticism. No matter how many near-death encounters are reported, the similarities between them are frequently attributed to factors like event stress, memory lapses, or confirmation bias. It is said that patients may recall specific aspects of an NDE because that is what they expected to happen during one. However, there appear to be genuine scientific findings to back up the claims.
The concept of "life recall" may no longer be so easily dismissed, because we know that in at least one case, the areas of the brain involved with memory recollection were especially stimulated right at the end of life. Unfortunately, this research cannot stop death in its tracks. The pursuit of immortality pervades all fields of science and technology. But one question is whether this latest development will cause us to approach death differently in the future.
Considering that the Human Connectome Project, among other things, aims to better prepare us to combat a variety of neurological conditions that can affect the human brain, it stands to reason that if we can now understand the brain activity of death itself, then perhaps we should soon attempt to address that as well. If not to prevent it, then at least to ensure that we can control how it affects our final moments when it does arrive? Perhaps some solace can already be found for the time being. The conclusions to be drawn from this case study are still largely speculative because it is only one case study.
The idea is that when we pass from this life, we do so while recalling memories in a dream-like state. At least for one patient, the brain activity during death seemed to encourage these types of contemplative, final thoughts. And as a result, scientists may have discovered what happens when we die to some extent. Or, at the very least, they might have learned a bit more about a small portion of it. However, there are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding death. The soul, spirit, mind, and body are all subject to a great number of metaphysical questions that will continue to spark discussion.
It's in our nature to reflect on our mortality occasionally, so perhaps it's not surprising that over the years, various attempts have been made to outwit death. While all of that is going on, it's equally important to live life to the fullest. To the fullest extent possible, to experience each moment, because, if the incredibly intricate structure of the human brain is any indication, our lives are truly a singular and wonderful opportunity.
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