(OPINION) It’s been an age-old trope in works of literature, poetry, and art for ages, but now science confirms it’s true: Life does indeed flash before your eyes when you die.
When an 87-year-old epilepsy patient unexpectedly passed away during a brain scan, the scan found that his brain seemed to replay memories in the 30 seconds before and after his heart stopped beating, according to a recent study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.
The patient, whose name was kept private, suffered a heart attack, and due to his do-not-resuscitate status, the scientists were able to track his brain waves throughout the final moments of his life. The scan was conducted by an international team of 13 neuroscientists led by Raul Vicente of the University of Tartu in Estonia.
The scientists were originally conducting electroencephalography (EEG) scans on the patient to detect and treat seizures. When he unexpectedly died, the EEG machine kept running, providing the scientists a first-of-its-kind glimpse into the brain activity of a dying human.
“This is why it’s so rare because you can’t plan this,” Ajmal Zemmar, one of the co-authors of the study, told Insider. “No healthy human is gonna go and have an EEG before they die, and in no sick patient are we going to know when they’re gonna die to record these signals.”
The brain activity of this sort could suggest that a final “recall of life” may occur in a person’s last moments, the team wrote in their study, published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience on Tuesday.
Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, a co-author of the study, said that what the team, then based in Vancouver, Canada, accidentally got, was the first-ever recording of a dying brain. He told the BBC: “This was actually totally by chance, we did not plan to do this experiment or record these signals.” So will we get a glimpse back at time with loved ones and other happy memories? Dr. Zemmar said it was impossible to tell.
