Louisville neurosurgeon marvels at the first-ever recording of a dying human brain

According to a release from the University of Louisville, it happened in Vancouver, Canada, when an 87-year-old patient with epilepsy had a fall. Dr. Raul Vicente of the University of Tartu and his colleagues continuously monitored the patient with electroencephalography. The goal was to detect the seizures, but during the recording of the brain waves, the patient had a heart attack and passed away.

Now, the graphs and images of the last 15 minutes of that patient's life are revealing amazing details about what happens as we die. Evidence shows the brain has bursts of activity similar to memory flashbacks. So the idea of someone's life "flashing before their eyes" may have some truth to it.

“We measured 900 seconds of brain activity around the time of death and set a specific focus to investigate what happened in the 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating,” said Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville, who organized the study.

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A study of the patient by Zemmar and colleagues, “Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain,” was published this week in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.