THE bright light at the end of the tunnel which some people close to death describe may result from a flood of serotonin in the brain.
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are reported by , and their cause is a mystery. Alexander Wutzler鈥檚 team at the in Berlin, Germany, wondered if serotonin 鈥� a neurotransmitter involved in mood regulation and processing vision and sound 鈥� plays a role.
They gave six rats an overdose of anaesthetic and found that serotonin levels in their brains had tripled by the time they died (Neuroscience Letters, ).
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Wutzler expects to see a similar increase in dying human brains. He says serotonin could be behind NDEs, but at Monash University in Melbourne is unsure. 鈥淥ne thing that you don鈥檛 want to say is that rats have NDEs,鈥� he says.
