Enhanced interplay of neuronal coherence and coupling in the dying human brain

Researchers report continuous EEG recordings from the brain of an 87-year-old man dying after cardiac arrest, the first such recording from a human in a real-life acute care setting, according to the article. The patient had bilateral subdural hematomas after a fall, underwent a left decompressive craniotomy, and developed non-convulsive status epilepticus before burst suppression spread across both hemispheres and cardiac arrest followed. The study reports increased absolute gamma power and decreased theta power after bilateral suppression, a higher relative gamma power after cardiac arrest, and strong coupling of gamma activity by alpha waves. The authors state that the human brain may be capable of generating coordinated activity during the near-death period.