FLICKR, VESTMAN
Neuroscientists have recorded intense bursts of neural activity, lasting about 30 seconds, in rats after experimentally stopping their hearts. The researchers claim that the after-death brain activity is associated with a heightened conscious experience and may be a neural correlate of near-death experiences—a suite of euphoric, hyper-real experiences reported by nearly 20 percent of cardiac arrest victims. The findings were published Monday (August 12) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The University of Michigan researchers, led by Jimo Borjigin, implanted six electrodes each into the brains of nine rats, gave the animals lethal injections of potassium chloride, and measured neural activity as they died. Immediately after the rats’ hearts stopped, the electrodes measured a sustained doubling of synchronized, high-frequency brain activity called ...
