Death just became even more scary: scientists say people are aware they’re dead because their consciousness continues to work after the body has stopped showing signs of life. That means that, theoretically, someone may even hear their own death being announced by medics.
The claim was made by Dr Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at NYU Langone School of Medicine in New York City.
He and his team are looking at people who suffered cardiac arrest, technically died, but were later revived. It’s the largest study of its type ever carried out. Some of those studied say they had awareness of full conversations and seeing things that were going on around them, even after they were pronounced dead.
These accounts were then verified by the medical and nursing staff who were present at the time. Death is defined as the point at which the heart no longer beats, and blood flow to the brain is cut off.
Dr Sam Parnia said:
“Technically, that's how you get the time of death – it's all based on the moment when the heart stops. Once that happens, blood no longer circulates to the brain, which means brain function halts almost instantaneously. You lose all your brain stem reflexes – your gag reflex, your pupil reflex, all that is gone.”
However, there’s evidence to suggest that there’s a burst of brain energy as someone dies. In 2013 researchers at the University of Michigan looked at the electrical signals inside the brains of nine anaesthetised rats having an induced heart attack. They saw activity patterns which are linked to a “hyper-alerted state” in the brief period after clinical death.
Dr Parnia said:
“In the same way that a group of researchers might be studying the qualitative nature of the human experience of 'love', for instance, we're trying to understand the exact features that people experience when they go through death, because we understand that this is going to reflect the universal experience we're all going to have when we die.”
My father God will come and take me home.
ReplyDeleteWell, according to this, if you're wrong, you'll know it...
DeleteCouldn't you just call Uber to do the same thing?
DeleteWas that a "too soon" joke? If so, bravo!
DeleteBut the people being studied did not die. They were pronounced dead, yes - but were not actually dead. So I cannot understand how someone who retained life to some extent can be labeled as having been dead.
ReplyDeleteyou do have a point here.
DeleteIt kind of makes sense. Yes, those people were revived, so there was a period of a sort of "in between" Think then, about the people who don't get resuscitated, or where the resuscitation doesn't work. They could still have that brief period, where they can still hear and feel things, even though they cannot move. It's also probable that there is more to brain activity than that which can be measured by our current instrumentation.
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