| Abstrakt: |
In 2023, the medical journal Resuscitation published the results of the latest study by Sam Parnia and his team, the AWARE II, in which they aimed to study consciousness after cardiac arrest and during the resuscitation process. Once again, the main objective was to detect any near-death experience (NDE) in which explicit memories occurred, either visual--of hidden images--or auditory. An important novelty was the measurement of EEG and cerebral oximetry during the brief pauses of CPR. Out of 28 interviews the researchers conducted with survivors, six patients reported NDEs, but none of them explicitly recalled either the hidden images or the auditory stimuli. However, in other patients from the study, some EEG activity that the authors deemed "compatible with consciousness" was detected during resuscitation, at least in some frequencies and brain areas. These data reopened the debate about whether the lucid consciousness of NDEs is generated by the dying brain. Parnia's own reflections in his earlier Bigelow contest essay denied this possibility. The AWARE II results did not resolve this question, but Parnia and his team suggested a possible explanation, still very theoretical, of NDEs based on brain disinhibition and ac-tivation of dormant brain circuits that would give access to "new dimensions of reality". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
