Possible Hints of Consciousness After Death Found in Rats

[n2doc]

BY BRANDON KEIM



For a brief time after their hearts stop beating, electrical activity that some scientists have linked to consciousness in humans continues in the brains of rats — a finding that could shed light on reports of near-death experiences in humans, and opens new possibilities for studying consciousness.

“People have just assumed that, after the heart stops, when the brain has very little oxygen or glucose, then the brain should not function,” said neurophysiologist Jimo Borjigin of the University of Michigan, leader of an experiment described August 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Higher brain function may require less oxygen and energy than many scientists had thought, Borjigin said.

Borjigin’s team implanted electrodes on the surface of the brains of nine rats, then injected the animals with potassium chloride, causing their hearts to stop beating and blood to stop flowing. This is the clinical definition of death.

At this point, or shortly after, neurological activity is supposed to cease. Yet for up to 30 seconds, the researchers’ electrodes detected patterns of synchronized, high-frequency activity known as gamma waves. In humans, some scientists have suggested that gamma waves could play a role in the interplay of perception, awareness, and intent known as consciousness.

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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/08/after-death-consciousness-rats/

[mattvermont]

1. seems like solid confirmation that

it is the latent and deminishing electrical impulses that lead many to believe there is some sort of devine ending to life.
I see it as confirmation of nothing after life....and that is comforting to me.

[BainsBane]

3. Seems to me it's confirmation of electrical activity for 30 seconds

and nothing more.

[Tien1985]

5. I can see that

but I think many people will be just as likely to see it as "ascending" slowly into the afterlife.

Personally, I think it's endorphins and electricity that create the hallucinations, but I can't say one way or another what that means for "life" after death.

[Politicalboi]

2. And why don't they do this on humans?

Go to senior hospitals and hook the ones up that are on their way out. Pay them or family for the chance to do this.

I read a few weeks ago here about a guy who was involved in a traffic accident, and his friends head was severed. He said it looked like his friend looked over and saw his body without his head and knew his fate, then he died. So I guess it's possible, if the accident story is true.

[Warpy]

4. Cut off oxygen and blood supply and it takes the brain about 4-10 minutes

to shut down completely. Consciousness might last for half a minute up to a minute, but after that there is no outward sign that the person is still alive or aware.

I've often thought that what happens is a switch to the right hemisphere coordinated with a rush of happy hormones from a dying brain, all endorphins and enkephalins released at once until we fade on out.