The Brain Turns Off 10 Minutes After The Death Of The Body

What happens after the death of the body remains a mystery. However, thanks to the advances in the instruments to measure the activity of the different functions of the organism, today we have a greater knowledge. It has been proven, for example, that after the death of the body the consciousness is still active. This means that a person is able to realize that he has died and is still active in the brain. Recent studies say this can last anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours.

Humanity has always wondered what happens after the death of the body. Today it is known that death is not actually an instant as such, but rather a process in which there are a whole series of changes when it starts and other additional ones when the heart stops beating.

What happens after death?

Clinically, a person dies when their heart stops beating. At that point, blood circulation stops, and therefore the brain stops receiving blood flow. Given this lack, it is certain that it will not survive, but it does not stop its activity automatically either.

When the heart stops, a chain process begins. It has been established that after cardiac death it takes about 10 minutes for the brain to begin to die in the strict sense. This means that there is a small window in which there is no longer life in the organism , but the consciousness continues to function.

Once cardiac arrest occurs, the person is unconscious. Usually this is accompanied by a loss of  short-term memory. That is why when a person has been unconscious due to a cardiac arrest, afterwards they do not remember what happened.

A long process

If there is no clinical resuscitation after cardiac arrest, changes begin to occur in the brain. The first to die are neurons in the CA1 area of ​​the hippocampus, as they are the most sensitive to oxygen deprivation. This deficiency also affects cells of the cerebellum, the striatum and the basal ganglia.

Therefore, when a person is resuscitated about four or five minutes after the death of the heart, it is most likely that they present motor coordination problems and confusion. In the chain of events that lead to the cessation of activity in the brain, what follows is the death of the pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex. Long after this the brain stem is affected.

In this way, the faculties for vital functions such as breathing and swallowing are lost. At that point a person could only live with artificial assistance. Meanwhile, there is a progressive death of neurons and what we call “personality” is increasingly diluted.

The death of the brain

As is known, there are many testimonies from people who have been resuscitated after clinical death. A large part of them remember hearing the conversations around them, and even “saw” the things that were happening in their environment. This is because the brain was still active, even though the heart was stopped and there were no vital signs.

Dr. Sam Parnia of New York University has studied several of these cases and discussed them in the journal Live Science . Among the noteworthy situations is that of a terminally ill patient whose brain was monitored after clinical death. Records say he had brain activity 10 minutes after his heart stopped.

What the devices registered was delta wave activity, which is what you have when you sleep. At the same time, he had no pulse, his pupils were dilated and did not react to light. Two other terminally ill patients were monitored simultaneously, but they did not present these characteristics. This allows us to suppose that death is not the same for all people.

Today, many clinicians have adopted the protocol of conducting a physical examination after clinical death. This is done 12 to 72 hours later, depending on the age of the deceased person. If there are no signs of brain activity, it is certified that brain death is irreversible.