While the EEG was happening, the man suffered a cardiac arrest and died. The man had been admitted to the hospital in the wake of a fall, and he was hooked up to an EEG machine to detect seizures. The background - An international team of researchers analyzed a continuous EEG - which measures electrical activity in the brain - of an 87-year-old man in the minutes before and after his death. But as far as a conclusive guide to our thoughts surrounding death? Not so much. A closer read of the study reveals some interesting insights about the moments preceding one man’s death and some clear lines between what was documented and what the scientists speculate might be happening. Headlines proclaimed, “ Brain scans on a dying man suggest his life flashed before his eyes, researchers say Life flashing before your eyes: Scientists record brain activity in a man’s final moments It’s true - life may well flash before your eyes when you die. Very often, though, it’s also a cause for skepticism. It’s a rare and exciting day for a health reporter when there’s so much buzz around a neuroscience study that it’s trending on Twitter. Of course, both my excitement and my skepticism were piqued. But can this actually tell us anything about what happens when we die? Researchers had caught a rare glimpse of recorded brain activity in the moments preceding and following death. On Wednesday, a flurry of headlines and a trending Twitter topic arose about a study published in Frontiers of Aging Neuroscience.
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