(We Chinese in America Media Editor Tang Zhao, March 20, 2022) Zimmer is currently a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville. In the 30 seconds before a patient's heart stops supplying blood to the brain, he said, brain wave patterns are the same as when a person performs tasks that require high cognition, such as concentrating, dreaming or recalling the past. Schematic diagram of the human brain. (Image from ingimage)

An unexpected new discovery from a scientific study shows that when a person is dying, the past may indeed be vividly remembered.

Scientists accidentally recorded a dying brain when they measured the brain waves of an 87-year-old patient with epilepsy who suffered a life-threatening heart attack, BBC News reported.

The results showed that 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating, the brain wave pattern of the male patient was the same as that of dreaming or recalling.

This brain activity suggests that a final "life review" may occur at the end of life, the study, published yesterday in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, wrote.

Study co-author Ajmal Zemmar said the data, which the team accidentally obtained at the time in Vancouver, Canada, was the first-ever record of a dying brain.

He told the BBC: "It was totally accidental, we didn't intend to do this experiment or record the signals in the first place."

Does this mean that when a person dies, past time with loved ones and other fond memories will reappear? Zimmer said there was no way to know.

"If you jump into the realm of philosophy, I would speculate that if the brain does a 'situational representation', it might remind people of good things rather than bad things. But memorable things can vary from person to person," he said.

The patient's brain waves persist for 30 seconds after the heart stops beating. "This may be the last review of our life experiences, replayed through our brains in the last seconds before we die," Zimmer said.

The study also raises the question of when does life end, when the heart stops beating, or when the brain stops functioning?

Zimmer and team caution that broad conclusions cannot be drawn from one study alone. It was further complicated by the fact that the patients in the study had epilepsy, as well as brain hemorrhage and swelling.

After his first record in 2016, Zimmer has been unsuccessfully searching for similar cases for years to help strengthen his analysis.

However, a 2013 study in healthy mice may provide some clues. Thirty seconds after the rat's heart stopped beating, the researchers recorded high levels of brain waves, similar to what Zimmer found in epilepsy patients, the American researchers said in the analysis.

Zimmer said there were "striking" similarities between the two studies. By publishing the cases of people with epilepsy, the researchers hope to open the door to other studies of the last moments of life.

"I think there's something mysterious and spiritual about the whole near-death experience," Zimmer said. "Discoveries like this are moments for scientists to live for."

(Source: Compiled from Online Information)

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