r/Neuropsychology

One of the strangest things I’ve come across: when the heart stops, the brain doesn’t shut down right away. There’s a short window where neurons are still active, and some studies have even recorded a surge of organized brain activity around the point of death — the kind of pattern normally tied to memory and awareness.
It raises the question of whether there’s a brief stretch of experience even after the heart has stopped, or whether it all just goes dark instantly.
Curious what people here think — does consciousness end the instant the heart stops, or linger for a moment as the brain runs down? And has anyone here had a near-death experience themselves, or been with someone who was clinically gone and came back? Would love to hear what that was actually like — what they remember, if anything.
(I made a detailed visual essay exploring this — if needed, please find it here :
https://youtu.be/SKPh0FFwmwY)

It came to mind recently that many people who are interested in neuropsychology do not know about this field, so I was wondering if anyone would be willing to talk about it from their experience.

Here is a general overview of the practice according to academic articles and from google more generally:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26848912/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7613143/

“Google: A career in neuropsychological brain mapping involves working closely with neurosurgeons to evaluate and map brain functions before, during, and after surgeries. They evaluate patients to establish baselines, map critical regions like language and memory, and guide surgical resections to preserve cognitive functions, often in real-time.”