End of Life Gamma Waves: Altered State of Consciousness or Artifactual Brain Activity?

"I had been in labor for my daughter for 16 hours. The labor was difficult and the Dr. approached me and told me it may come down to a choice between the child or myself.  ...  The labor dragged on and on and finally they came in and broke my water. I was rushed into delivery and within minutes my heart had stopped. I remember seeing a beautiful being of light enter the room. She told me I had to return as it was not my time yet. I was sucked back into my body as they restarted my breathing. My daughter began crying the moment I opened my eyes."-Description of a near-death experience1Are you afraid to die? We all are. Fear of pain and suffering, fear of the unknown, fear of eternal damnation (for the religious), fear of nothingness (for the atheist). Fear of the end. The finality of it all.The existential fear of death is part of the human condition. For a neuroscientist, studying what happens to conscious thought during the brain's own demise is one of the most profound of all questions. Short of conducting ill-advised scifi experiments on your med school classmates, how does one go about studying such a phenomenon? By using an animal model of cardiac arrest.thanks to Chris Chambers for the video ideaSurge of neurophysiological coherence and connectivity in the dying brainA popular new study by Borjigin et al. (2013) recorded EEG activity directly from the brains of nine dying rats. This paper was widely reported in mainstream media outlets, and has been nicely...
Source: The Neurocritic - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs