I’m a neuroscientist – this is why some people have near-death experiences

Near-death experiences have fascinated people — and experts — for millennia.

But until recently there has been no scientific explanation for why this phenomenon occurs. 

Now, neuroscientist Dr Jane Aspell has explained that it could be caused by damage to a vital part of the brain responsible for processing senses and balance. 

It could explain why those who have come close to death, taken drugs or suffered from a brain injury are among those who have reported out of body experiences.

Such accounts have detailed cases of sufferers floating above their body that is lying down beneath them just after a traumatic event or accident.

Giving a talk on the science behind out of body experiences, Dr Aspell, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at Anglia Ruskin University, explained that the phenomenon is a ‘very real, very vivid hallucination’.

She believes that people seeing their own ‘body double’ could be caused by damage to a part of the brain called the temporal parietal junction.

Neuroscientist Dr Jane Aspell of Anglia Ruskin University, pictured, says out of body experience could be down to damage to a vital part of the brain responsible for processing senses and balance 

Dr Aspell said: ‘There is now strong evidence that out of body experiences, and related experiences, are caused by abnormal functioning in parts of the brain that process and combine signals from our bodies. 

‘Recent research on neurological patients has shed light on how the healthy brain generates the experience of one’s self, and what happens when that construction temporarily goes “wrong”.’ 

The temporal parietal junction sits on the both sides of the brain just above the ear, but it is the right side that’s associated with out of body experiences, Dr Aspell explains. 

This part of the brain is active during social functions, and needed to process empathy and memory.

It also draws on the senses of vision, sound and touch to create a coherent feeling of the self inside the body. 

The temporal parietal junction sits on the both sides of the brain just above the ear. This part of the brain draws on information from vision, the ears and touch and creates a coherent feeling of the self, one that is inside the body

‘It seems to make sense then that if this area is not functioning as it should, this integration of all of these different signals will not occur as it should, so the experience of being one single body might therefore be disrupted,’ says Dr Aspell. 

Part of the temporal parietal junction, called the vestibular cortex, acts as the balance system in our ear, helping us know where we are in relation to gravity. 

The vestibular cortex could offer further explanation on out of body experiences, Dr Aspell believes.  

If the brain cannot combine information from this balance system with other senses, it can give the feeling of floating above your own body that occurs in near-death and out of body experiences, according to Dr Aspell. 

In fact, Dr Aspell says there are several examples where people had out of body experiences who all had abnormal functions in the temporal parietal junction. 

One 42-year-old female epilepsy patient at a hospital in Geneva was reported on in an article published in Nature in 2002. 

She was due to undergo surgery to remove the part of the brain the was causing her seizures. 

Before surgery, doctors implanted a grid of electrodes in her brain to record its activity and stimulate parts of the organ to identify which bits needed surgery. 

When the patient’s temporal parietal junction was stimulated, she reported having an out of body experience. When medics switched the electricity off, she was back in her body again.

In another case, a man who had a ringing in his ears, known as tinnitus, was cured of the condition when medics permanently planted electrodes into his temporal parietal junction. 

But it had a similar side effect that caused an out of body experience.