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An inadvertent consequence of advances in stem cell research, neuroscience, and resuscitation science has been to enable scientific insights regarding what happens to the human brain in relation to death. The scientific exploration of death is in large part possible due to the recognition that brain cells are more resilient to the effects of anoxia than assumed. Hence, brain cells become irreversibly damaged and "die" over hours to days postmortem. Resuscitation science has enabled life to be restored to millions of people after their hearts had stopped. These survivors have described a unique set of recollections in relation to death that appear universal. We review the literature, with a focus on death, the recalled experiences in relation to cardiac arrest, post-intensive care syndrome, and related phenomena that provide insights into potential mechanisms, ethical implications, and methodologic considerations for systematic investigation. We also identify issues and controversies related to the study of consciousness and the recalled experience of cardiac arrest and death in subjects who have been in a coma, with a view to standardize and facilitate future research.

Introduction: Belief in psi, which includes psychic phenomena such as extra-sensory perception and post-mortem survival, is widespread yet controversial. According to one of the leading and perhapsmost tested hypotheses, high belief in psi can be explained by differences in various aspects of cognition, including cognitive styles. Most of this research has been conducted with lay individuals. Here, we tested the hypothesis that academic researchers who investigate psi may exhibit different cognitive styles than lay individuals interested in psi, and are more similar to skeptics. Methods: We measured two cognitive styles--actively open-minded thinking (AOT) and the need for closure (NFC)--and assessed differences among four heterogeneous groups regarding belief in psi and involvement in related research. Specifically, our study included academic psi researchers (N = 44), lay individuals who believe in psi (N = 32), academics who are skeptics of psi (N = 35), and lay individuals who are skeptics (N = 33). Results: We found group differences in AOT (p = 0.003) but not in NFC scores (p = 0.67). Post hoc tests showed no significant difference in AOT scores between academics who conduct psi research (4.5 ± 0.3) and academic skeptics (4.5 ± 0.3; p = 0.91) or lay skeptics (4.5 ± 0.4; p = 0.80). The lay psi group had significantly lower AOT scores (4.2 ± 0.4) than the other three groups (ps: 0.005-0.04), indicating a decreased willingness to consider a range of evidence when forming an opinion, including evidence that challenges their beliefs. AOT was negatively associated with psi belief in the two skeptic groups combined (r = -0.29, p = 0.01), but not in the psi groups (r = -0.03, p = 0.78). Discussion: Our research shows that academics who work with psi differ from lay psi individuals, but not from skeptics, in actively open-minded thinking. In other words, despite their high belief in psi phenomena, psi researchers demonstrate a commitment to sound reasoning about evidence that is no different from that of skeptics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent journal article described continuous brainwave recording leading up to and following cardiac arrest in an elderly patient with multiple brain abnormalities. The authors wrote that increased brainwaves in the gamma frequency after his heart stopped might indicate persistent mental activity and particularly memory recall, and they speculated that this brain electrical activity might explain the life review in near-death experiences (NDEs). This speculation was subsequently hailed in the popular media as establishing a neurological explanation for NDEs. We review alternative interpretations and sources of the electrical activity recorded from this one patient’s head, question the timing of the reported cessation of cardiac activity, and contrast findings from other studies of brainwave activity at death. We conclude that this one intriguing case does not provide adequate evidence of continued memory processing after death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some individuals when they come close to death report having experiences that they interpret as spiritual or religious. These so-called near-death experiences (NDEs) often include a sense of separation from the physical body and encounters with religious figures and a mystical or divine presence. They share with mystical experiences a sense of cosmic unity or oneness, transcendence of time and space, deeply felt positive mood, sense of sacredness, noetic quality or intuitive illumination, paradoxicality, ineffability, transiency, and persistent positive aftereffects. Although there is no relationship between NDEs and religious belief prior to the experience, there are strong associations between depth of NDE and religious change after the experience. NDEs often change experiencers' values, decreasing their fear of death and giving their lives new meaning. NDEs lead to a shift from ego-centered to other-centered consciousness, disposition to love unconditionally, heightened empathy, decreased interest in status symbols and material possessions, reduced fear of death, and deepened spiritual consciousness. Many experiencers become more empathic and spiritually oriented and express the beliefs that death is not fearsome, that life continues beyond, that love is more important than material possessions, and that everything happens for a reason. These changes meet the definition of spiritual transformation as 'a dramatic change in religious belief, attitude, and behavior that occurs over a relatively short period of time.' NDEs do not necessarily promote any one particular religious or spiritual tradition over others, but they do foster general spiritual growth both in the experiencers themselves and in human society at large.

Electromagnetic (EM) aftereffects have been reported following near-death experiences (NDEs). These effects include both (a) EM actions, apparent actions by the individual on the surrounding EM environment, and (b) EM reactions, apparent reactions of the individual to the EM environment. This study investigated EM aftereffects among 216 NDErs, 54 persons who had been close to death without NDEs, and 150 persons who had never been close to death. NDErs reported both greater EM actions and greater EM reactions than did either comparison group. Among NDErs, those with higher scores on the NDE Scale reported more EM aftereffects. These findings corroborate and extend prior studies and suggest the need for controlled experiments to measure the kinds and strengths of EM fields generated or channeled by NDErs, the kinds of EM fields and devices that are affected by NDErs, and the kinds and strengths of EM fields to which NDErs react. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades of studies on near-death experiences (NDEs) have revealed both cross-cultural and culture-specific features (Kellehear, 2009) and that it is important to determine which aspects are attributed to the physiological, biological, or psychological mechanisms shared by all humans and which aspects are of cultural origin. In this article, we examine Japanese NDEs and compare their features with generalizations based on observations of Western NDEs. The main differences between Japanese and Western NDEs are the interpretation of the light and the concomitant lack of interaction with it, the image of heaven, and the absence of the life review. We suggest that these characteristics are accounted for in terms of cultural differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spiritually transformative experiences, either spontaneous or intentionally sought, lead people to perceive themselves and the world in profoundly different ways, expanding their identity, augmenting their sensitivities, and altering their values, priorities, and sense of meaning and purpose in life. Since the ascendance of psychodynamic theories a century ago, skeptical psychologists have interpreted spiritual experience as a neurotic defense against life' s vicissitudes. With the development of neurocognitive psychology in recent decades, skeptical neuroscientists have reinterpreted spiritual experience as a hallucination produced by the brain. Although both of those interpretations are plausible for some experiences that are couched in spiritual terms, the assumption that all spiritual experiences are pathological is based on the erroneous notion that any experience that differs from normal perception is abnormal. That assumption can be maintained only by ignoring the profound differences between spiritually transformative experiences and psychotic experiences. These pervasive differences include the context in which the two kinds of experience occur, the content of the experience itself, how the experience is remembered, and how the experience affects the individual. Spiritually transformative experiences, unlike most forms of mental illness, may enhance serenity and sense of purpose and expand the experiencer's perception and appreciation of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Some Basic Problems with the Term Near-Death Experience," by Birk Engmann, Am Wald, and Fachklinikum Brandis in the 2011 issue.

Keith Augustine has provided a legitimate and cogent critique of a transcendental interpretation of near-death experiences, exposing weaknesses in the research methodology, paucity of the data, and gaps in the arguments. He offers evidence from psychophysiological and cultural correlates of NDEs that he interprets as favoring a hallucinatory understanding of these phenomena. However, his analysis relies on idiosyncratic definitions of psychological concepts, reads unidirectional causality into bivariate correlations, and underestimates the empirical predictions of the separation hypothesis. Despite less than compelling evidence for the transcendental hypothesis, it accounts for NDE phenomenology better than the materialist model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Does Paranormal Perception Occur in Near-Death Experiences?," by Keith Augustine in the Summer 2007 issue.

Keith Augustine's critique of studies of veridical perception in near-death experiences is based on unsubstantiated speculation from the popular media, rather than on supportive data or peer-reviewed literature. Nevertheless, addressing the issues he raises would improve the methodology of near-death research and strengthen the evidential database for veridical perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persons reporting near-death experiences (NDEs) sometimes describe a sense of having been out of their bodies and observing their surroundings from a visual perspective outside of and above their bodies. We attempted to study such phenomena during the surgical implantation of automatic implantable cardioverters/defibrillators (ICDs), electrical devices that monitor the patient's heartbeat and automatically detect cardiac arrest and administer an electrical shock to return the heart to normal rhythm. When ICDs are implanted in a patient's chest, cardiac arrest is induced under closely monitored conditions, in order to test the ICD's sensitivity and effectiveness. This study was designed to investigate the accuracy of out-of-body perceptions during NDEs that occur during these induced cardiac arrests. A computer in the operating room displayed quasi-randomly-selected unusual visual targets so that they were visible only from above eye level, from a visual perspective looking down upon the body of the unconscious patient. In a series of 52 induced cardiac arrests, no patient reported having had a near-death experience, and none reported a sense of having left the physical body or observing from an out-of-body visual perspective. This failure to find a single NDE in 52 induced cardiac arrests may have been due to preoperative reassurances that patients would not be in danger of dying, the brief duration of the induced cardiac arrest, or the amnestic effects of pre-anesthetic sedative medication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characteristic psychological and behavioral changes are well recognized after effects of near-death experiences (NDEs). Although much valuable research into these after effects has been qualitative, Kenneth Ring (1984) developed a instrument to quantify value changes following an NDE. This instrument, eventually named the Life Changes Inventory (LCI), has evolved over the decades to reflect increased understanding of the nature and breadth of NDE aftereffects. However, the accumulated modifications of the original scale have never been published, and various researchers have continued to use superseded editions. This paper presents the Life Changes Inventory--Revised, a standardized version of this scale that embodies the accumulated knowledge culled from previous drafts of the LCI administered to disparate samples and from qualitative research into attitudinal changes reported by near-death experiencers. It is our hope that with this standardization of the LCI-R, it will replace earlier versions of the LCI and become the instrument of choice for future research into value changes associated with NDEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]