Brain Scans Suggested Man’s Life Really Flashed Before His Eyes As He Died

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February 27, 2022, 9:39 am

A newly released study came back with evidence that our lives might actually flash before our eyes in the moments before death.

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In 2016, an 87-year-old was having his brain scanned for signs of seizures when he had a heart attack and died. This provided a unique opportunity for scientists to study his recorded brain activity leading up to and yes, shortly after, his heart stopped beating.

“We measured 900 seconds of brain activity around the time of death and set a specific focus to investigate what happened in the 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating,” said Dr. Ajmal Zemmar. “Just before and after the heart stopped working, we saw changes in a specific band of neural oscillations, so-called gamma oscillations, but also in others such as delta, theta, alpha and beta oscillations.”

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Neuroscientists recorded the brain activity of an 87-year-old as he died from a heart attack while using electroencephalography (EEG) to treat his seizures

+ It is the first time ever that scientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain, according to the team pic.twitter.com/1zHx7pj4JC

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) February 23, 2022

What this essentially amounts to is that the neural activity they were able to record is activity generally associated with recalling memories or dreaming, lending credibility to the idea that we see emotionally charged moments from our lives in the moments leading up to death.

The study sample size is only one — this single patient who happened to be hooked up to a brain scanner when he died — and it’s not something that can easily be replicated, as it would require knowing exactly when someone was going to die.

Still, Zemmar says what they saw was enough to claim “that we have signals just before death and just after the heart stops like those that happen in the healthy human when they dream or memorize or meditate.”

That the brain scan showed continued neural activity for around 15 seconds after the patient’s heart stopped beating also brings with it questions about when death actually occurs.

“A matter of 15 seconds may not sound all that much, but in medicine, it’s not that little,” Zemmar told Insider. “So if we declare the patient dead when the heart stops and perform organ donation, then do we do it 15 seconds after to let them replay memories? I don’t know. This is a question that our study has opened up.”

Where the research goes from here remains to be seen, but even the idea that our brains could naturally bring forth some of our best — or possibly worst — memories as we die is an interesting insight into the greatest mystery of all.

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*First Published: February 27, 2022, 9:39 am