Scientists found a scientific explanation for death visions in the brain

Scientists were able to detect a spike in activity in the dying brain that occurred in the part responsible for dreams, visual hallucinations in epilepsy, and altered states of consciousness. They believe this may explain the visions of people on the brink of life and death.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. During their study, they observed four people who were in comas.

The team studied the patients by hooking them up to monitor the electrical activity of the brain. This is how a spike in activity related to consciousness was detected occurring in the dying brain.

Scientists believe that their findings may explain the stories of those who were on the verge of death and spoke of seeing white light, long-lost loved ones, and voices.

For the experiment, though, the scientists had to literally kill their patients. All four people were in a coma for quite a long time and did not react to any external stimuli. So when it was finally decided that they were not medically treatable and would never come back to life, the scientists obtained permission from their relatives and disconnected them from life-support machines.

The moment the patients were disconnected from the ventilator that kept them alive, two patients experienced an increase in heart rate as well as a spike in gamma wave activity, which is thought to be the fastest in the brain and is associated with consciousness.

The study was a continuation of similar experiments that were conducted on animals nearly a decade ago.

Scientists note that when oxygen is lost after cardiac arrest, similar signs of gamma activity have been recorded in the dying brain of both animals and humans.

Despite the fact that the results of the experiments are very interesting, the scientists urge not to sensationalize them yet, because the sample size was small.

They also note that they can only speculate about what the patients experienced since they did not survive.

Larger studies may provide the necessary data to determine whether these bursts of gamma activity are evidence of hidden consciousness even before death.

Previously, OBOZREVATEL also told about the scientists who discovered that after death, zombie genes wake up in people's brains.

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