What happens to the human brain and body after death has remained a long-standing question. It’s intriguing to think about all the various functions of our body that ceases to operate while the heart stops beating. Many people believe in the white light theory that some people have claimed to see during near-death experiences.
Some people also believe that the soul leaves the body and goes to another dimension. However, when it comes to finding facts related to death, researchers choose evidence over anecdotes. It does not matter what the cause of death is; the human brain experiences death differently.
Scientists suspect that at the threshold of death, the human brain may display activity patterns similar to memory replay. One published study reported intriguing findings from EEG recordings of an 87-year-old patient who died of a heart attack. The study observed elevated gamma… pic.twitter.com/0NmWuVySXb
— Kekius Maximus (@Kekius_Sage) January 22, 2026
As per a recent discovery, researchers may have a reason to believe that the human brain remains conscious for a longer time after death. The brain may die in different phases and have bursts of activity left after a person is declared dead.
The researchers studied near-death experiences of cardiac arrest patients and concluded that the human brain may be able to stay conscious for minutes to hours. Therefore, it does not die instantly when doctors declare a person medically brain dead.
Simply knowing and understanding how the brain acts after death may help doctors reconsider how they resuscitate the patient. Anna Fowler, an Arizona State University student, revealed that neural and biological functions do not stop suddenly. They may take minutes to hours to lose function.
as if death wasn’t bad enough: “Emerging evidence suggests that biological and neural functions do not cease abruptly. Instead they decline from minutes to hours…death, long considered absolute, is instead a negotiable condition”.https://t.co/u52aUWQKzh
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) February 16, 2026
She further explained how up to 20 percent of cardiac arrest survivors were able to recall conscious experiences when there was no cortical activity. As per Fowler’s observation, consciousness in the brain may still be there despite not being measurable.
Some patients who may have had any brain activity during those moments may still be able to recall the moments, proving the brain still remains active even when it is believed to be dead.
Fowler also suggested that death should be measured in phases, like cancer is measured in stages. It makes more sense this way since the brain has some organized activity.
Similarly, Sam Parnia from New York University Langone Medical Center said that the cells in the body have their own death process. They do not stop working the moment a person dies. She explained the body has hours, if not days, before the organs, along with the brain, have irreversible damage after death.
