Near-death experiences are 'electrical surge in dying brain'

[dipsydoodle]

A surge of electrical activity in the brain could be responsible for the vivid experiences described by near-death survivors, scientists report.

A study carried out on dying rats found high levels of brainwaves at the point of the animals' demise.

US researchers said that in humans this could give rise to a heightened state of consciousness.

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The lead author of the study, Dr Jimo Borjigin, of the University of Michigan, said: "A lot of people thought that the brain after clinical death was inactive or hypoactive, with less activity than the waking state, and we show that is definitely not the case.

"If anything, it is much more active during the dying process than even the waking state."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23672150

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
PNAS,

Surge of neurophysiological coherence and connectivity in the dying brain.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/08/1308285110

[nebenaube]

1. except that it also happens as hypnogogia and no one dies... n/t

[dipsydoodle]

2. In which case

surely that's as well as then ?

[nebenaube]

9. This is just a permutation of a story that comes out periodically...

We trip at night, sometimes when we are falling asleep, sometimes when we are sleeping, and sometimes as we are waking up. It's not your normal state of consciousness, but it's not the cortical depolarization of death either.

[mucifer]

3. That might be how some dying people can see loved ones who have died .

It's something that we hospice nurses see a lot of. It doesn't happen with most people, but it does happen a lot.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

4. So wait ...

am I still supposed to "go towards the light" when I'm dying ?

[PADemD]

7. Yes

[agent46]

14. No

Don't go into the light. It's a trick.

[sakabatou]

5. We've known this for a while.

[demwing]

6. who is "we"

The title of the article makes it sound like settled law, but the content is full of words like "could" or "may."

Nothing in this post closes any doors...

[sakabatou]

8. I myself have heard this explanation for years

Why it's come back up, I don't know.

[nebenaube]

10. Oh geez...

Anyone of thousands of fellows practicing in sleep medicine for one.

[nebenaube]

11. Only because you don't understand neurophysiology.

They report nothing more than the massive depolarization that occurs at death and conflate that with known REM phenomena. As far as I am concerned,I am more entitled to a MD then the authors of this superficial crap.

[demwing]

12. You're not an MD?

huh.

Anyway, B follows A.

Does A cause B? Perhaps, but chronology isn't causality.

[demwing]

13. turn the article title into a question

and then answer the question in the body. The author did the opposite.