Contents
The brain may remain active for several minutes after the body dies, which is when the heart stops beating. Scientists periodically renew their research to understand if, why, and for how long this most important organ of the body is able to function despite the lack of a blood supply.
- The moment of death is considered to be the cessation of heartbeat. However, research by scientists shows that death is not an event, but a process and “creeps” into the body gradually
- One of the organs that goes out last is the brain. It may remain active minutes after death. This has been proven by studies conducted on animals, but also on terminally ill patients
- Interviews with people who experienced clinical death led to interesting conclusions. Many of them can accurately report what happened after the heart stopped beating and before it was restarted
- More information can be found on the TvoiLokony home page
At the end of the 15th century, the famous French physicist and chemist Antoine Lavoisier was sentenced to death by guillotine cutting. The scientist made an appointment with his assistant that, after being cut, he would try to blink his eyes for as long as possible. According to the assistant’s account, he blinked for 20-XNUMX seconds. Speculations about the survival of consciousness in severed heads increased especially during the French Revolution and circulated through France throughout the nineteenth century. Decapitation was then the “favorite” form of killing people. Reportedly, there were cases of eye movements or lips, and even reddening of the cheeks in freshly cut heads. And although such events are treated rather as curiosities on the border of history and medicine, there are examples that science confirms such phenomena.
«Death Wave» – the last signal from the brain
A 2011 study by the Dutch from Radboud University Nijmegen proved that a person may be aware for up to several tens of seconds after decapitation, but also that there is such a thing as a “death wave” which is the last signal from the brain, the link between life and death. The study was conducted on rats. Electrodes were attached to their heads and EEG recordings were taken 30 seconds before decapitation and also for 5 minutes after decapitation. Before being decapitated, the animals showed sensory awareness. After decapitation, there was a sharp loss of EEG signal, but symptoms related to chewing movements appeared a few seconds after. After a minute, a 10-second wave of nerve impulse appeared on the monitor screen, an energetic flash of the killed brain. According to the researchers, this was a violent reaction of cells to their depletion of oxygen and energy.
Brain activity 10 minutes after death
Another study of brain activity after death was conducted by Loretta Norton, a researcher at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. The results were published in 2017. She analyzed brain wave records in terminally ill people just before and immediately after their death. In one of them, brain activity was detected 10 minutes after the body died, i.e. cardiac arrest. For the others, however, the waves faded away just before circulation stopped, making the results inconclusive. The cause of this brain activity is unknown, but it shed doubts about the complete death of this organ after the heart stopped beating.
“Animated” brains of pigs
One more recent study, published in the journal Nature, found that pig brains could be ‘revived’ for several hours after the animals died. The researchers removed the brains after slaughter and kept them in special chambers. Four hours after death, they pumped a synthetic fluid (BrainEx) into the brain that mimics blood. This resulted in the restoration of cellular metabolism in neurons and other cells. The structural integrity of the cells was maintained, while the control brains without BrainEx infusion deteriorated. What’s more, the application of electrical stimulation to the extracted tissues from the living brains caused the firing of individual neurons, however, it had nothing to do with restoring consciousness.
Researchers say that if a revitalized brain is subjected to a sufficient electric shock, it may restart activity at the neuronal level. The visible revival of cell functions is an extraordinary discovery that could have a great impact, for example, on transplantology.
Awareness after clinical death
One of the most important discoveries of scientists, resulting from many years of research on the human body, is that death is not an event but a process. This can be seen in the case of clinical deaths, when the so-called NDE (near-death experience) – sensory feelings experienced by a person who has almost died or was in a state of clinical death. The brain has been shown to be able to maintain consciousness for a short time after the heart has stopped beating. Interesting conclusions were brought by the research carried out by Dr. Sam Parnia from the NYU Langone School of Medicine in New York – one of the specialists examining what happens to our body after death.
- Clinical death – what it is, symptoms, chances of survival. Clinical death and biological death
Recent studies have shown that animals experience a sharp increase in brain activity minutes after death. And people in the first phase of death may still experience some form of consciousness, said Dr. Sam Parnia, quoted by Mindmatters.ai. He added that numerous pieces of evidence showed that people whose hearts had stopped and then resumed their work were able to accurately report what was happening around them. The respondents told, inter alia, about the work of doctors and nurses, and their reports were confirmed by the medical staff of the facility where they were located. It is the NDE that was just mentioned.
Officially, the time of death is considered to be the moment of cardiac arrest. It is the cessation of the electrical impulse that drives the heartbeat. However, does death instantly overwhelm our mind, or is it slowly creeping into it? Research allows us to understand a lot, but it will be many years before all doubts are cleared. If it ever happens.