No Detectable Electroencephalographic Activity After Clinical Declaration of Death Among Tibetan Buddhist Meditators in Apparent Tukdam, a Putative Postmortem Meditation State

Recent EEG studies on the early postmortem interval that suggest the persistence of electrophysiological coherence and connectivity in the brain of animals and humans reinforce the need for further investigation of the relationship between the brain's activity and the dying process. Neuroscienc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in psychology 2021-01, Vol.11, p.599190
Main Authors: Lott, Dylan T, Yeshi, Tenzin, Norchung, N, Dolma, Sonam, Tsering, Nyima, Jinpa, Ngawang, Woser, Tenzin, Dorjee, Kunsang, Desel, Tenzin, Fitch, Dan, Finley, Anna J, Goldman, Robin, Bernal, Ana Maria Ortiz, Ragazzi, Rachele, Aroor, Karthik, Koger, John, Francis, Andy, Perlman, David M, Wielgosz, Joseph, Bachhuber, David R W, Tamdin, Tsewang, Sadutshang, Tsetan Dorji, Dunne, John D, Lutz, Antoine, Davidson, Richard J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
auditory brainstem response
brain death
Cognitive science
EEG
Life Sciences
mismatch negativity
postmortem
Psychology
tibetan buddhism
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Summary:Recent EEG studies on the early postmortem interval that suggest the persistence of electrophysiological coherence and connectivity in the brain of animals and humans reinforce the need for further investigation of the relationship between the brain's activity and the dying process. Neuroscience is now in a position to empirically evaluate the extended process of dying and, more specifically, to investigate the possibility of brain activity following the cessation of cardiac and respiratory function. Under the direction of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, research was conducted in India on a postmortem meditative state cultivated by some Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in which decomposition is putatively delayed. For all healthy baseline (HB) and postmortem (PM) subjects presented here, we collected resting state electroencephalographic data, mismatch negativity (MMN), and auditory brainstem response (ABR). In this study, we present HB data to demonstrate the feasibility of a sparse electrode EEG configuration to capture well-defined ERP waveforms from living subjects under very challenging field conditions. While living subjects displayed well-defined MMN and ABR responses, no recognizable EEG waveforms were discernable in any of the cases.
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.599190