This is what happens to our brains when we die

Very little is known about the death . He came to this conclusion neuroscientist Jimo Borjigin who, despite his daily experiences in the course of his work, had never closely studied what happens to the brain at the time of death.

But everything changed when, inadvertently, two rats he kept after the operation died. As they were connected to machines, the researcher was able to see live what was happening in their little brains: one of them had “a massive secretion of serotonin”, the neurotransmitter of happiness.

“Was that rat hallucinating?” Without having any answers yet, a deep curiosity awoke within her and she decided to investigate what happens to humans when they die.

What he discovered This calls into question everything previously known about death.

When someone goes into cardiac arrest, they collapse and “you call his name and he doesn’t respond, you touch him and he doesn’t respond, he doesn’t move, it’s like he’s dead “. Then the neuroscientist explained to BBC World , The doctor checks the arms or neck and if no pulse is found, it means the heart is not pumping and the person is “clinically dead”.

But what about your brain? Until, It was believed that when the heart stops pumping blood, oxygen does not reach the brain and it becomes “hypoactive,” meaning no activity.

However, Jimo Borjigin’s conclusions are completely different.

Two studies on rats, carried out in 2013 and 2015, found that when the animals’ hearts stopped, “serotonin increased 60 times; dopamine (a feel-good substance) increased 40 to 60 times; norepinephrine (which puts you on alert) also increased.

That’s to say, the brain was far from being “inactive”. Rather, it was activated at levels that weren’t even that high when the animal was alive. “In both cases, 100% of the animals showed intense activation of brain functions,” the neuroscientist said.

Then, in 2023, An investigation was conducted with four human patients who were in a coma and on life support. that “they were dying of different illnesses” and that their families were “letting them go” because no medical procedures could help them.

With permission from doctors and family, the mechanical ventilators or respirators that were keeping them alive were removed and, by controlling their brains, In just a few seconds, the researchers discovered that elevated brain activity was recorded in two of the patients.

They discovered gamma waves, which are those generated in “complex information processing and memory.”

What yes, compared to rats whose brains completely lit up, in humans, “only certain parts were activated.” Among them was the area related to dreams and visual hallucinations and that of language, speaking and listening.

According to the cases that the doctor was able to study, she emphasized that Patients who were on the verge of death had “experiences” that changed their lives.

Some people said that In this state, they flashed through their lives or remembered key moments. Others claim to have seen the famous “light” and others said they were able to step out of their bodies and see what was happening around them.

With this in mind, the neuroscientist believes that All experiments would be linked to its discovery. Far from the dying person’s brain being turned off, in reality it continues to be active.

“How is it possible that a person can have extremely emotional and awe-inspiring mental experiences, see a light, hear voices, feel outside of their body, float in the air? “It’s all part of brain function.”

For the doctor, all this would only be the tip of “an immense iceberg that we see on the surface” and which must be explored, discovered and understood, because perhaps because the brain continues to function even after the heart stops beating, millions of premature diagnoses of death could be made.