What happens in the human brain when dying? People who have survived clinical death report a loss of sense of space and time and various hallucinations. Scientists have found that this is caused by a burst of gamma activity in the brain’s cortex area.

In the dying human brain, scientists have recorded bursts of gamma waves in the area responsible for visual perception. Increased activity of interconnecting gamma waves in the brain has also been observed, as reported in an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

By observing four dying patients in a coma after artificial respiration was terminated, doctors found flashes of gamma waves in the area corresponding to visual perception. Increased gamma wave activity was also observed in the interhemispheric regions of the brain. These findings are reported in an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Three of these individuals died due to hypoxic brain damage after cardiac arrest, and one patient died due to extensive bleeding in the brain. In the last hours of life, two of the patients exhibited seizure activity in the brain. To measure these phenomena, research leader Jim Coan Borjigin from the University of Michigan used electroencephalography (EEG).

In the first patient, flashes of gamma rhythm were recorded in the left frontocentral part of the temporal lobe EEG before death: the frequency ranged from 30 to 120 Hz, and the amplitude was 2-10 microvolts. The same was observed in the second patient. In the later stages of death, flashes of gamma rhythm were observed in the right and left temporal lobes.

Previously, scientists believed that high-frequency oscillations that EEG could record, called the “consciousness signature,” explained what happens before death.

It is also known that gamma activity has been observed in animals after cardiac arrest. Now scientists are convinced that it reflects conscious perception and processing of visual information and increased attention (if we speak about consciousness in relation to cats and parrots, it is incorrect).

Despite the lack of scientifically proven evidence of the existence of “life after death,” this does not mean the opposite.