Doctors record ‘unexplained’ brain activity ten minutes after patient died
Is there life after death? Science can’t yet answer that question – but doctors in a Canadian intensive care unit say that a patient showed ‘persistent’ brain activity after death.
The activity was detected 10 minutes after the patient was certified dead.
Doctors had confirmed death by the absence of a pulse, and a lack of reaction in the pupils – but the patient still appeared to have ‘delta wave bursts’, similar to what happens in sleep.
The team from the University of Western Ontario said, ‘In one patient, single delta wave bursts persisted following the cessation of both the cardiac rhythm and arterial blood pressure (ABP).
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The researchers admit that there is no biological explanation for how brain activity could continue several minutes after the heart has stopped beating, according to Science Alert.
The researchers write, ‘It is difficult to posit a physiological basis for this EEG activity given that it occurs after a prolonged loss of circulation.
‘These waveform bursts could, therefore, be artefactual (human error) in nature, although an artefactual source could not be identified.’
