Does Your Brain Know When You Die?

Yes, say scientists from Langone School of Medicine, in New York, especially when the death is “temporary” as when someone comes back after having officially been dead, heart attacks, injury, etc. In fact, some patients state they actually heard the doctor declare their death and/or conversations in the room for several minutes after death, and then revived.

Death is declared to have occurred when the heart no longer beats on its own and therefore there is no longer blood flow to the brain. At that point, the cerebral cortex slows down and stops (flatlines) anywhere from 2-20 seconds, the brain stem loses all function, as does your gag reflex and pupillary reflexes: states Dr. Sam Parnia director of critical care and resuscitation at Langone. However, this research strongly suggests there is a surge of electricity that drives the memories for a longer period than previously known.

Also, common among those who’ve been resurrected, is a change of attitude and/or personality such as becoming more altruistic, more helpful, and more concerned about others rather than self. Parnia does not believe that there are any great memory revivals.

Dr Jimo Borjigin, of the University of Michigan, said: "A lot of people thought that the brain after clinical death was inactive or hypoactive, with less activity than the waking state, and we show that is definitely not the case. If anything, it is much more active during the dying process than even the waking state."

While Dr Jason Braithwaite, University of Birmingham says that a near death experience over-stimulates the brain, creating the “white light” experience or re-living life in a flash before death, which seems to be common around the world. Needless to say, this is a very difficult phenomenon to study and/or prove. We have only the recently dead to interview and believe.

In an attempt to prove electrical surges, scientists at the University of Michigan probed 9 dying rats for 30 seconds after death, and found a sharp increase in gamma oscillations (high frequency brain waves). In fact, the electrical output was actually higher in dying rats than they were in the living ones. These gamma waves link information in various parts of the brain.

The researchers agree that the same is possible with human accounting for much of the lights and visions, etc. As the activity occurs in the part of the brain just above the visual cortex. More human research is needed to confirm these same aspects of electrical and visual behavior. They say that studying rats is one thing, but humans are another.