Resuscitation
February 8, 2007
111 citations
Accounts of near-death experiences remain consistent over nearly two decades. In a study of 72 patients who had reported a near-death experience in the 1980s, their scores on the NDE scale did not change significantly when retested years later, and the time elapsed between the two tests did not correlate with any score changes. This indicates that such accounts, especially their positive emotional content, are not embellished over time and supports their reliability.
Resuscitation
July 2, 2009
Mario Beauregard, Jérôme Courtemanche, Vincent Paquette
65 citations
Near-death experiencers who mentally visualize and emotionally connect with the 'being of light' they encountered during their experience show distinct brain activity compared to visualizing a lamp's light. Functional MRI reveals activation in regions linked to positive emotions, visual imagery, attention, and spiritual experiences, including the right brainstem, orbitofrontal and prefrontal cortices, insula, and temporal areas. EEG recordings show greater theta, alpha, and gamma power at multiple electrode sites across frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions during the meditation condition. These findings suggest that recalling a near-death experience involves measurable neural changes in emotion and imagery networks.
Resuscitation
October 1, 2023
Sam Parnia, Tara Keshavarz Shirazi, Jignesh Patel et al.
64 citations
During cardiac arrest and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), some patients show signs of consciousness and cognitive activity, including brain activity on EEG that resembles normal waking patterns despite severe oxygen deprivation. In a study of 567 in-hospital cardiac arrests, 11 of 28 survivors interviewed reported memories or perceptions suggesting consciousness during CPR. Four categories of experiences emerged: CPR-induced consciousness, post-resuscitation awareness, dream-like experiences, and transcendent recalled experience of death (RED). A separate group of 126 community survivors reinforced these categories and added delusions. Normal EEG activity (delta, theta, alpha) appeared for up to 35–60 minutes into CPR even with low cerebral oxygenation, suggesting that a network-level cognitive activity and lucidity may occur during cardiac arrest.