Tag: NDE

Jimo Borjigin, UnCheol Lee, […], and George A. Mashour

These data demonstrate that cardiac arrest stimulates a transient and global surge of synchronized gamma oscillations, which display high levels of interregional coherence and feedback connectivity as well as cross-frequency coupling with both theta and alpha waves. Each of these properties of gamma oscillations indicates a highly aroused brain, and collectively, the data suggest that the mammalian brain has the potential for high levels of internal information processing during clinical death. The neural correlates of conscious brain activity identified in this investigation strongly parallel characteristics of human conscious information processing. Predictably, these correlates decreased during general anesthesia. The return of these neural correlates of conscious brain activity after cardiac arrest at levels exceeding the waking state provides strong evidence for the potential of heightened cognitive processing in the near-death state. Though neurophysiology at the moment of cardiac arrest has not been systematically studied in human cardiac arrest survivors, surges of electroencephalographic activity (measured by bispectral index) have been reported in humans undergoing organ donation after cardiac death. The consistent finding of a high-frequency EEG surge reflecting organized neurophysiologic activity in nine of nine rats undergoing cardiac arrest should prompt further studies in humans. Importantly, the essential results of increased gamma power and coherence were confirmed with an alternative mode of death. Use of these unique experimental paradigms will allow detailed mechanistic dissection of neurophysiology of the dying brain in animal models, which could provide guidance for research on NDE after cardiac arrest in humans.

NDE represents a biological paradox that challenges our understanding of the brain and has been advocated as evidence for life after death and for a noncorporeal basis of human consciousness, based on the unsupported belief that the brain cannot possibly be the source of highly vivid and lucid conscious experiences during clinical death. By presenting evidence of highly organized brain activity and neurophysiologic features consistent with conscious processing at near-death, we now provide a scientific framework to begin to explain the highly lucid and realer-than-real mental experiences reported by near-death survivors.

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