Mysterious burst of activity in f latliners

摘要

Parts of the brain may still be alive even when someone is in a deep coma and their brain activity seems to have gone silent. When a person enters a deep coma an electroencephalogram (EEG) may eventually show a flatline, which is one of the signs of brain death. However, while monitoring a patient who had been placed in a coma to prevent seizures following a cardiac arrest, Bogdan Florea at the Regina Maria Medical Centre in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, noticed something strange - tiny intermittent bursts of activity interrupting a flatline signal, each burst lasting a few seconds.