What happens when we die? A new study makes a startling discovery

There is little, if any, chance that we will ever know what happens after we die. The most certain is that the mystery never ceases to exist. But, apparently, knowing what happens when we die is another story.

Or, at least, that’s what a group of scientists who have conducted an ambitious new study hope to find: What happens when we die? And what they have found – they believe – leaves us at the gates of finally pulling the veil.

Specifically, researchers at the University of Michigan in the United States detected it at the time of death there is an unusual increase in brain activity.

This activity, they reported, is similar to that seen during dreams and in patients with seizures during hallucinations and out-of-body experiences.

Study may help explain reported “near-death” experiences from up to a fifth of cardiac arrest survivorsregardless of their cultural or religious background.

For the study, the team looked at heart and brain functions using the signals electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) in four patients who were comatose after withdrawal of life support.

Two of the patients showed a rapid increase in an area of ​​the brain known as “hot spot”which is believed to be essential for conscious processing.

The increase in gamma waves detected by the EEG was stimulated by global hypoxia (the complete lack of oxygen after the removal of the ventilation), while her heart rate also increased.

“The internal perception of bright light or familiar faces reported by survivors of clinical death suggests a preserved capacity in the dying brain to process the internally generated vision” concludes the study, the results of which were published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That is, “the moments before death it can be more vivid than a simple fade in the darkness”.

The team, led by Dr. Jimo Borjigin, investigated whether gamma activity could be due to the patients suffered from seizures as a result of oxygen deprivation, but other EEG data showed no evidence to support the theory, although both patients had suffered from it previously. upheavals in his life.

However, the team is keen to emphasize that the results do not prove any form of thinking or awareness at the time of death, because they are patients they did not survive to report their experiences.

“How much vivid experience can emerge from a dysfunctional brain during the dying process It is a neuroscientific paradoxsaid study co-author Dr. George Mashou.

“I study it helps to shed some light on the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms,” Mashou added.

“We can’t make correlations of neural signatures of consciousness observed with a corresponding experience in the same patients in this study,” said Dr. Nusha Mihaylova, who was part of the team:

“However, the results observed are decidedly exciting and provide a new framework for our understanding of hidden consciousness in dying humans”.

Previous animal studies had also shown high levels of gamma wave activity before death. “The empirical evidence presented in this study strongly suggests this dying human brain can be activated” concluded the team.

“This study sets the stage for further investigations of occult awareness during cardiac arrest, which can serve as a model system for explore the mechanisms of human consciousness“, the scientists closed.