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First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

louisville.edu

161–170 of 299 posts

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anesthetics are very weird though. There's still a lot we don't know about how they work. They seem to act like you experienced, complete shutdown, for most people, which seems different from the states that people go into when unconscious or are near death usually. And some people have a very different experience while under them - they are fully aware.

I had heard something unsettling about anesthesia that I could use verification or debunking. The gist was that modern implementations suppress memory formation rather than induce unconsciousness. That you remain in some sense aware of what's happening but don't remember the experience. This is safer than traditional methods, but could potentially subject the patient to complex mental or emotional trauma. Is that acc…

In some cases. My first experience with my wife in an ER (there have been many!), the doc came up to us and said exactly this. They needed to reposition a broken bone so it could be put in a cast before surgery to rebuild the wrist could be scheduled. Since it would only take a few seconds, instead of anesthesia they would use a medication that would let her be aware of the process, but she would forget it almost immediately after.

That was about 20 years ago. To this day, the last thing she remembers is lying on the table and saying "OK, let's git-er-done" and the next 5-10 minutes are missing.

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#162
post #145

Are there any software engineers here that believe in the afterlife?

I’ve had a wild life. I was a Protestant for over thirty years and I became a Catholic around two years ago. I’ve had more than a few demons attack me and two confirmed good spirits, probably angels. The test for spirits is to get them to agree that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. It’s sometimes difficult to understand them, but anyway I really believe the Bible and supernatural stuff. If anyone on here wants to reach out my email is in my profile.

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#163
post #15

I have lost consciousness several times in my life. Not a pleasurable experience specially as last time I did it because of such extreme pain that I thought I was passing away. However I have had always recollection of those seconds or minutes when I was unconscious: there was always an intense and quick succession of memories and images accompanied by sound. At some point the external sound from people trying to rea…

For contrast, when I was put under with propofol for surgery, there was nothing. I thought I would gently fall asleep, but it was actually extremely fast. It went from "tell me about your life" which the anesthetist uses to check your state to "oh so came here for uni..." to "huh the surgery is over" in a single cut. Nothing in between, nothing like that thing you feel when before you fall asleep at night or wake up…

> I thought I would gently fall asleep , but it was actually extremely fast.

Sometimes people fall asleep that way too, especially when very tired. The expression ‘out like a light’ seems apt.

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fighting back worked a hell of a lot better than anything the "responsible" adults could ever suggest. School teachers, councilors, my mother, etc, all gave useless advice. My dad told me to fight back. When I finally listened to him, that's when the bullying stopped. I lost that fight, but won the war so to speak. Telling kids not to fight back is a terrible cowardly thing to do, the adults who do that are either ob…

Sure, if you fight back, the bully is less likely to pick on you . They’ll just pick on the next weakest kid instead.

So what, I'm supposed to let myself get beat up so the bully doesn't pick somebody else instead?

Your theory is bullshit anyway, the more times the bully encounters resistance, the more opportunities that bully has to learn to be better.

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#165

In the 90s, psychiatrist Rick Strassman proposed in his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule that large quantities of DMT (an endogenous psychoactive substance), are released into the brain upon death. I don't know that we have any clear evidence of this, but its certainly an interesting perspective on what might account for near death, and death experiences.

Traumatic events, like NDEs, tend to come with lots of adrenaline, stress hormones, and a cocktail of neurotransmitters that could have the secondary consequence of slowing overall monoamine oxidation, similar to MAOIs, resulting in longer effective exposure to any chemicals like DMT that would normally be transient. You at most have around 250 μg in your system, you need at least 40 times that to get to the lower th…

There is evidence for a surge in DMT production in some rats upon death:

> In our previous studies, we have observed a marked elevation of some, but not all, critical neurotransmitters in rat brain during asphyxic cardiac arrest21, which we posit may contribute to the elevated conscious information processing observed in dying rats21,49. These data also suggest that global ischemia (by cardiac arrest, as in the current study), similar to global hypoxia (by asphyxia, as in21), leads to a tightly regulated release of a select set of neurotransmitters21. To test whether DMT concentrations are regulated by physiological alterations, we monitored DMT levels in rat brain dialysates following experimentally-induced cardiac arrest, and identified a significant rise in DMT levels in animals with (Fig. 4A) and without the pineal (Fig. 4B).

> The cardiac arrest-induced increase of endogenous DMT release may be related to near-death experiences (NDEs), as a recent study reports NDE-like mental states in human subjects given exogenous DMT50. Not all rats in our current study exhibited a surge of DMT following cardiac arrest (Fig. 4), an interesting observation in light of the fact that NDEs are reported by less than 20% of patients who survive cardiac arrests.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6088236/

Presumably only 20% of the rats were religious.

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#166
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry that happened to you. That's so horrible. Wanna make me beat up bullies, man. Got damn bullies.

Their life is shit already, that's why they act as they act, passing aggression on to others in vain effort to get rid of some of that 'evil' in them. I understand this knee-jerk reaction very well, but it just feeds the neverending spiral of aggression. We humans act like storage of both good and bad, it then comes back up in various situations. What I want to say - you just beating up a bully will mean some other k…

Somehow others experience shit situations without needing to self-sooth by inflicting similar pain on others.

Bullying is not a form of innocently misguided, or sympathy deserving, coping.

I think that view is best interpreted as an inaccurate but well meaning rationalization offered to bullied people, to suggest more passive karma is present than there is. Often by those uncomfortable with the pervasive element of real-politik physical negotiation throughout nature.

Bullies are cruel because they are getting something psychological and practical from the practice. Usually both. Violence exists because it is a very effective tool.

And just as easily a tool for good. Bullies’ behavior is famously responsive to people who vigorously retaliate or are strongly defended. Even to the point of genuinely respecting those strong enough to give back punishment, as well as they can take.

Bullies are also famously quick to offer their subservience to bigger bullies. Suddenly pliable “lambs” in that context, offering up their own power. These are rational choices for those that operate in the violence economy, not the flailings of broken souls.

Which makes standing up to all bullies in the world dramatically more important, than the calculus of any individual situation might seem to suggest.

Like all economic realms, norms that bend to lower the costs of applying bullying, violence, threat and fear power, only incentivize further expansion, investment and innovation.

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#167
post #15

I have lost consciousness several times in my life. Not a pleasurable experience specially as last time I did it because of such extreme pain that I thought I was passing away. However I have had always recollection of those seconds or minutes when I was unconscious: there was always an intense and quick succession of memories and images accompanied by sound. At some point the external sound from people trying to rea…

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/the-possibilia... When David Eagleman was eight years old, he fell off a roof and kept on falling. Or so it seemed at the time. His family was living outside Albuquerque, in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. There were only a few other houses around, scattered among the bunchgrass and the cholla cactus, and a new construction site was the Eagleman boys’ idea of a per…

It’s not surprising that in life threatening situations the brain would focus all of its attention on the immediate situation, rather than worrying about the usual crap the brain worries about (like paying your bills).

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#168
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s generally very quick, but I suppose not perfect as on one occasion, they had to give me some additional kind of injection because for some reason, I was still awake. The guy doing it seemed confused. With whatever he did additionally, as he did it he goes: “Let’s try this again, start counting back from 10” I might have made it to 9 the second time around. Does this mean they messed up the dosage or something? I…

It's possible he messed up the dosage. What he gave you wasn't good anymore. Or something else I'm not even thinking of. The fact that he gave you something else that time, and that you've never had that experience again would make me believe he thought it was a fault in the product he initially gave you.

Ah thank you! That's super interesting. What an interesting job Anaesthetists have. I'm very greatful to mine, I always feel looked after when in his hands.

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traumatic events, like NDEs, tend to come with lots of adrenaline, stress hormones, and a cocktail of neurotransmitters that could have the secondary consequence of slowing overall monoamine oxidation, similar to MAOIs, resulting in longer effective exposure to any chemicals like DMT that would normally be transient. You at most have around 250 μg in your system, you need at least 40 times that to get to the lower th…

There is evidence for a surge in DMT production in some rats upon death: > In our previous studies, we have observed a marked elevation of some, but not all, critical neurotransmitters in rat brain during asphyxic cardiac arrest21, which we posit may contribute to the elevated conscious information processing observed in dying rats21,49. These data also suggest that global ischemia (by cardiac arrest, as in the curre…

Right, the 250 microgram figure was the maximum amount that you might dump into your system in one go, normal DMT blood concentration is far lower. The bare minimum for a psychedelic experience is 20k micrograms, but many people won't notice anything overt until 35k+, and a full "breakthrough" experience requires 50k or more, generally speaking, independent of weight.

For such a tiny amount of DMT to have a significant impact, it would have to be 40 to 100 times more "effective" than usual, or be supported by the soup of other chemicals released in those situations in a sort of entourage effect, with MAO metabolism reduced, and all sorts of neurons firing that otherwise would be silent.

NDEs often overlap real events, where full-on DMT trips shut out the world, so the entourage effect theory makes the most sense to me. Your brain gets overwhelmed, and the dump of DMT all at once, with serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline maxed out as well, contributes to a predictable psychedelic effect on subjective experience.

Re: First recording of a dying human brain shows waves similar to memory flashbacks (2022)

#170
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that we don't really have a precise definition of "alive", it should not be surprising that we are unable to tell the precise moment a person dies.

Miracle Max gave us a clear definition if I recall, you die when you are "all dead", as long as you are mostly dead, you are slightly alive... I'll let myself out now.

“ If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark “
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