[SUB]Humans are just atoms from food recombined.[/SUB]
Most people haven't heard this word but in recent years there has been a lot of intrest and research in necroneuroscience - a branch of neuroscience trying to explain what happens with your brain when you are at a near death experience or right at death.
Canadian researchers have recorded brain activity in patient occuring up to 10 minutes after the final heartbeat.
Another interesting finding was that the actual moment at which the heart stopped was not associated with any abrupt change in the EEG.
All these lead to the conclusion that the human brain may live on for a while longer after what's long been considered true brain death.
Another research from the University of Montreal finds that there's a deeper state of coma beyond what doctors have been considering to be the final line.
Traditionally, when an EEG recording — a measurement of electrical activity along the scalp — comes to a flatline, a brain's activity is considered to have ceased and the patient is declared legally brain dead. But the Montreal research team found that it can actually return again through a medically induced coma.
The researchers write that this newly identified coma state is "the deepest form of coma obtained so far." The exact mechanism why this happens is not understood but it is possible that in some people neurons can be very resilient and survive extreme conditions like long period of oxygen deprivation especially in cold environment.
Death is a rapid sequence of events in brain cells which initially might be microscopic but then start a fatal cascade as the cells enter into self-destruct mode.