near to death episodes: latest study (Endings)

by David Turell , Wednesday, November 01, 2017, 14:51 (2577 days ago) @ dhw

dhw:I can only repeat that the article does not go beyond patients’ awareness of conversations after the heart has stopped beating, and refers to “a burst of brain energy”, which you have said is irrelevant. I DO accept that information such as the hitherto unknown death of a relative may be regarded as evidence for dualism. I do NOT see how awareness of conversations taking place around a patient whose cortex is still alive but cannot manifest any function (akin to the “locked in” state of coma victims) can be regarded as evidence. Your comment on the article was: “consciousness survives brain death for a few minutes. It is obviously separate from the brain itself, and if so dualism is correct.” The article proves that consciousness survives heart death for a few minutes, but the cortex is NOT dead for a few minutes. I cannot see how this proves that consciousness is separate from the brain. Once more: I am commenting on the limitations of the article, not on NDEs in general.

The point you keep missing is the flat EEG during resuscitation. A flat EEG means the cortex is not functioning even if the neurons have not yet died.

New article on the subject, why the cortex is so sensitive to oxygen loss:

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/brain-damage-mechanism-discovered

"A team from Maastricht University Medical Centre and Maastricht University, writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has identified a single enzyme that is produced after oxygen deprivation which causes severe damage to tissues – but only in the brain.

"The enzyme, NOX4, is produced by several organs and muscles when they undergo oxygen deprivation, or hypoxia. However, in all these instances it is harmless.

"The Maastricht team, led by Harald Schmidt, discovered that NOX4 in the brain behaves very differently. As soon as it is produced it triggers the breakdown of cells at the blood-brain barrier. It also kicks off a self-destruct mechanism in neurons. Combined, these actions result in profound physical and mental damage.

"In experiments, Schmidt’s team found that if the NOX4 enzyme was eliminated – either by inhibiting it with drugs or removing the gene responsible for creating it – both the blood-brain barrier and neurons remained intact, and no brain damage resulted.

“'This discovery solves a long-standing mystery of the unique sensitivity of the brain to hypoxia,” says Schmidt.

"Understanding the role of NOX4 now presents new targets for post-stroke treatments and rehabilitation, he adds. "

Comment: Cortical neurons are non-functional within 20 seconds per flat EEG. Current medical evidence states that consciousness resides in those neurons, but consciousness is able to continue. How? Could there be deeper levels of brain activity to support consciousness? Some strange deeper EEG spikes have been seen sporadically, but are poorly understood. You have limited your comment about the cortex to four minutes, but resuscitations can go on for 40 minutes (I've been here) before recovery or death. Remember the van Lommel patient and the teeth, which were removed after the fellow was brought into the hospital (time not specified) and took 45 minutes to resuscitate. I still read the original study as supporting consciousness without a functional cortex, therefore evidence for dualism.