Consciousness during CPR

Could this explain near desth experiences?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6042660/

The old myth about zero bloodflow in the brain and flat eeg is effectively debunked now.

[Laird]

Could this explain near desth experiences?

Nope. Not when you include veridical perceptions.

Nope. Not when you include veridical perceptions.

The problem is that this phenomena is yet to be reported in the best quality of evidence studies. Parnia recently submitted this abstract: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/...uppl_2.387

Zero veridical perception. The phenomena must be extremely rare. I think this implies a risk that those few quality accounts that exists could be down to confirmation biases and false memories.

[Laird]

The problem is that this phenomena is yet to be reported in the best quality of evidence studies.

But given its rarity and elusiveness, isn't this to be expected? According to the abstract you provide, Parnia had only 21 interviewees to work with. That's not a big sample size given the nature of the phenomenon.

From the first report:

At several points during the resuscitation the patient regained some consciousness. He made purposeful movements to push CPR providers away and verbalized with defibrillations.

This type of consciousness, where the person has some control over the body, is very different to a typical NDE account where the person not only has no control over the body, but is utterly disinterested in it. If a patient starts to show signs of movement, that typically indicates a time when an NDE is not taking place.

I'm going to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy Christmas and at the same time (because I couldn't resist the juicy worm on the hook) comment about that unusual case cited by SBU above and Parnia's recent poster abstract. (not as an expert of course, just to be clear)

SBU said > "Could this explain near death experiences?"

The answer to that is no, because exactly as Laird said (and Typoz added to) it doesn't explain how patients can gather so much veridical information from their position on the gurney. Furthermore, as far as I understand by that paper, the man didn't report a near death--out of body experience. So why didn't he ? He should at least have confabulated something, either consciously or sub consciously if veridical OBE's are created physiologically. 

SBU said > "The old myth about zero blood flow in the brain and flat eeg is effectively debunked now."

I'm afraid not, SBU although maybe you prefer that to be the case, I don't know (apologies if I'm wrong). Zero blood flow into the brain STILL equals flat EEG (after 10-20 seconds) of heart stoppage. This man was actually in Ventricular tachycardia (very fast heartbeat) and was shocked out of that rhythm after only one minute.

"Approximately 7 minutes after receiving tenecteplase the patient became unresponsive, with no pulse, and polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (VT) was identified on the cardiac monitor. Chest compressions were immediately started and the patient was defibrillated 1 minute after cardiac arrest with 200 J."

He was also already receiving various drugs before his heart went into a dangerous rhythm (Obviously I don't know what they were) but Parnia is well aware of cases like this one; he's dealt with them before. The man is not in true cardiac arrest (apparently) but don't take it from me, ask Pim Van Lommel an expert (ask him yourself)  

Referring to Parnia's extract SBU said > "Zero veridical perception. The phenomena must be extremely rare. I think this implies a risk that those few quality accounts that exists could be down to confirmation biases and false memories."

Parnia's extract shows 4 patients reported an NDE out of 19 (as I remember) which fits in nicely with previous studies (percentage wise). Unless all of those patients had out of body experiences from a position above themselves and high enough to see the laptop screen, we can't say there was zero veridical perception, only that there was zero veridical perception of the laptop screen.

NB There was also zero observation of the symbol on the underside of the laptop shelf (which I think is an X cross) which means that the patient's eyes must not have been open or at least if they were, they didn't see it as would have been expected of course (because the eyes don't work when the brain is in that state). 

One or more of those 4 (statistically) should have had some kind of out of body experience. He doesn't tell us, though, he just says that some of the 19 reported hearing external sounds such as conversations and drugs given. Bear in mind that no one should have heard anything except the sound (stimuli) that was fed into all 19 patients  ears, so that in itself is very significant and really doesn't help sceptics, as far as I can tell.

Which brings us to the one person who did hear the stimuli fed into his/her ears. It appears either that one person's consciousness (out of 19) was restored enough with vigorous and prolonged CPR to hear a sound fed directly into his/her ear, (or less likely but alternatively that particular persons disembodied consciousness somehow detected the stimuli). Probably the former but it's all speculation. Parnia will, I'm sure clear this up for us. 

What was the most surprising was the literally miniscule sample they've manged to harvest from initially some 4500 cardiac arrests. 4 NDE's is not even in the 'ball park' to sufficiently test patients claims of watching themselves, let alone the bullseye perfect OBE needed to see the laptop screen.

However, what is remarkable, is why those 4 NDErs became positive and somehow transformed after facing their death and annihilation. What did they see and experience that transformed them ? Non of the others (the patients who didn't have a near death experience) became transformed. Rather they tended to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder.

In short we're gong to have to wait until he's got the numbers. However, if sceptics think that poster supports their contentions, they're kidding themselves.

Van Lommels study suggests a correlation between the depth of the experience, and severity of the cardiac arrest. The severity of the cardiac arrest is also inversely correlated with survival following resuscitation. If you don't interview them pretty damn quick... you'll lose the chance forever!

I highly doubt there’s any reality to this presumption. What do you mean by severity? A cardiac arrest is fatal unless circulation is restored. I don’t think you can break that prognosis into severities. Of those dying shortly after circulation is restored most probably remains unconscious/unresponsive or with serious brain damage.

If I remember Van Lommels Lancelet study correctly younger people were much more likely to report a NDE than old people. The article about consciousness during CPR makes the same observation.

What was the most surprising was the literally miniscule sample they've manged to harvest from initially some 4500 cardiac arrests. 4 NDE's is not even in the 'ball park' to sufficiently test patients claims of watching themselves, let alone the bullseye perfect OBE needed to see the laptop screen.

Yes 4 NDEs from 4500 events. It clearly indicates a disconnect from self-reported NDEs. Especially because the survival rate in the out-of-hospital setting in significantly below the in-hospital. I’m afraid it implies that e.g most of Jeffrey Long’s reports are simply garbage.

Merry christmas to everyone and thank you for taking your time to debate. It’s very much appreciated.

[Laird]

Where are you guys getting 4,500 events from? I'm seeing 465 in the abstract. Am I missing something?

Merry Christmas to you too, sbu!