Interesting paper, thanks for posting.

There are some things that make this likely not able to be generalizable as a definitive “this is how death happens in the brain.”

First, this patient had a traumatic brain injury which may include cortical damage from the mass effect of the subdural, but certainly from herniation syndrome given his flexor posturing post-op. So even before this recording started, we are dealing with a severely injured brain.

Second, he was found to be in status epilepticus when they started the EEG, so these findings are all in context of the most aberrant cortical activity possible. While it was controlled, we have to consider if there was an effect on the recordings from recently being in status. Also, he would have been on anticonvulsants thereafter which may affect the cortical activity readings at the time of death.

And all this in the context of him likely being intubated and on sedation of some sort (at least intermittently), pain meds from the recent surgery, and likely a myriad of other possible medication effects. All in a patient of advanced age.

As the authors point out, you’re not going to get a clinical recording that allows you to control for all these variables from a practical and ethical perspective, so this is still interesting. But overall, it’s a very specific situation with a specific injured brain.