Response to: Near-death experiences and the importance of transparency in subjectivity, ontology and epistemology
Brain Communications January 4, 2022 Daniel Kondziella, Charlotte Martial 1 citation
peer reviewed
Charlotte Martial
University of Liège, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège
52 papers in the library · 2,015 citations · publishing 2016-2025
Papers
Losing the Self in Near-Death Experiences: The Experience of Ego-Dissolution.
Brain Sciences July 14, 2021 Charlotte Martial, Géraldine Fontaine, Olivia Gosseries et al. 37 citations
Many people who have had a near-death experience (NDE) describe, as part of it, a disturbed sense of having a "distinct self". However, no empirical studies have been conducted to explore the frequency or intensity of these effects. We surveyed 100 NDE experiencers (Near-Death-Experience Content [NDE-C] scale total score ≥27/80). Eighty participants had their NDEs in life-threatening situations...
The evolutionary origin of near-death experiences: a systematic investigation
Brain Communications June 22, 2021 Costanza Peinkhofer, Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol et al. 49 citations
Abstract Near-death experiences are known from all parts of the world, various times and numerous cultural backgrounds. This universality suggests that near-death experiences may have a biological origin and purpose. Adhering to a preregistered protocol, we investigate the hypothesis that thanatosis, aka death-feigning, a last-resort defense mechanism in animals, is the evolutionary origin of...
Neural Responses to Heartbeats Detect Residual Signs of Consciousness during Resting State in Postcomatose Patients
Journal of Neuroscience March 23, 2021 Diego Candia‐rivera, Jitka Annen, Olivia Gosseries et al. 81 citations
The neural monitoring of visceral inputs might play a role in first-person perspective (i.e., the unified viewpoint of subjective experience). In healthy participants, how the brain responds to heartbeats, measured as the heartbeat-evoked response (HER), correlates with perceptual, bodily, and self-consciousness. Here we show that HERs in resting-state EEG data distinguishes between...
Mapping the functional brain state of a world champion freediver in static dry apnea
Brain Structure and Function 2021 Jitka Annen, Rajanikant Panda, Charlotte Martial et al. 15 citations
peer reviewedVoluntary apnea showcases extreme human adaptability in trained individuals like professional free divers. We evaluated the psychological and physiological adaptation and the functional cerebral changes using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to 6.5 min of dry static apnea performed by a world champion free diver. Compared to resting...
The Near-Death Experience Content (NDE-C) scale: Development and psychometric validation
Consciousness and Cognition November 1, 2020 Charlotte Martial, Jessica Simon, Ninon Puttaert et al. 69 citations
As interest grows in near-death experiences (NDEs), it is increasingly important to accurately identify them to facilitate empirical research and reproducibility among assessors. We aimed (1) to reassess the psychometric properties of the NDE scale developed by Greyson (1983) and (2) to validate the Near-Death Experience Content (NDE-C) scale that quantifies NDEs in a more complete way....
The use of psychedelics in the treatment of disorders of consciousness. An interview with Olivia Gosseries by Charlotte Martial.
Open Repository and Bibliography (University of Liège) October 13, 2020 Olivia Gosseries, Charlotte Martial 5 citations
In this interview, we discuss the use of psychedelic drugs as a promising treatment in disorders of consciousness. Psilocybin, a classic psychedelic, is currently undergoing substantial clinical investigations in healthy volunteers, but also in clinical populations. Recently, experts in the field of psychedelics have addressed the attractive possibility to use such psychedelics on patients...
Perturbations in dynamical models of whole-brain activity dissociate between the level and stability of consciousness
bioRxiv Preprint Server July 2, 2020 Yonatan Sanz Perl, Carla Pallavicini, Ignacio Perez-Ipina et al. preprint
Consciousness transiently fades away during deep sleep, more stably under anesthesia, and sometimes permanently due to brain injury. The development of an index to quantify the level of consciousness across these different states is regarded as a key problem both in basic and clinical neuroscience. We argue that this problem is ill-defined since such an index would not exhaust all the relevant...
Near-Death Experience Memories Include More Episodic Components Than Flashbulb Memories
Frontiers in Psychology May 13, 2020 Héléna Cassol, E. Bonin, C. Bastin et al. 9 citations
Memories of near-death experiences (NDEs) are recalled as “realer” than memories of other real or imagined events. Given their rich phenomenology, emotionality and consequentiality, it was hypothesized that they could meet some aspects of the definition of flashbulb memories. We aimed to identify and compare the episodic and non-episodic information provided in verbal recollections of NDE,...
Characterization of near death experiences using text mining analyses: A preliminary study
PLoS One January 30, 2020 Vanessa Charland-Verville, D. Ribeiro de Paula, Charlotte Martial et al. 20 citations
The notion that death represents a passing to an afterlife, where we are reunited with loved ones and live eternally in a utopian paradise, is common in the reports of people who have encountered a “Near-Death Experience” (NDE). NDEs are thoroughly portrayed by the media but empirical studies are rather recent. The definition of the phenomenon as well as the identification of NDE experiencers...
Near-Death Experience as a Probe to Explore (Disconnected) Consciousness
Trends in Cognitive Sciences January 22, 2020 Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol, Steven Laureys et al. 90 citations
Forty-five years ago, the first evidence of near-death experience (NDE) during comatose state was provided, setting the stage for a new paradigm for studying the neural basis of consciousness in unresponsive states. At present, the state of consciousness associated with NDEs remains an open question. In the common view, consciousness is said to disappear in a coma with the brain shutting down,...
Modulation of the spontaneous hemodynamic response function across levels of consciousness.
Neuroimage October 15, 2019 Guo-Rong Wu, Carol di Perri, Vanessa Charland-Verville et al.
Functional imaging research has already contributed with several results to the study of neural correlates of consciousness. Apart from task-related activation derived in fMRI, PET based glucose metabolism rate or cerebral blood flow account for a considerable proportion of the study of brain activity under different levels of consciousness. Resting state functional connectivity MRI is playing...
Neurophenomenology of near-death experience memory in hypnotic recall: a within-subject EEG study.
Scientific Reports October 1, 2019 Charlotte Martial, Armand Mensen, Vanessa Charland-Verville et al. 36 citations
The neurobiological basis of near-death experiences (NDEs) is unknown, but a few studies attempted to investigate it by reproducing in laboratory settings phenomenological experiences that seem to closely resemble NDEs. So far, no study has induced NDE-like features via hypnotic modulation while simultaneously measuring changes in brain activity using high-density EEG. Five volunteers who...
General Anesthesia: A Probe to Explore Consciousness
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience August 14, 2019 Vincent Bonhomme, Cécile Staquet, Javier Montupil et al. 109 citations
General anesthesia reversibly alters consciousness, without shutting down the brain globally. Depending on the anesthetic agent and dose, it may produce different consciousness states including a complete absence of subjective experience (unconsciousness), a conscious experience without perception of the environment (disconnected consciousness, like during dreaming), or episodes of oriented...
A systematic analysis of distressing near-death experience accounts
Memory June 12, 2019 Héléna Cassol, Charlotte Martial, Jitka Annen et al. 60 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are usually associated with positive affect, however, a small proportion are considered distressing. We aimed to look into the proportion of distressing NDEs in a sample of NDE narratives, categorise distressing narratives according to Greyson and Bush’s classification (inverse, void or hellish), and compare distressing and “classical” NDEs. Participants wrote down...
Neurochemical models of near-death experiences: A large-scale study based on the semantic similarity of written reports.
Consciousness and Cognition March 1, 2019 Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol, Vanessa Charland-Verville et al. 98 citations
The real or perceived proximity to death often results in a non-ordinary state of consciousness characterized by phenomenological features such as the perception of leaving the body boundaries, feelings of peace, bliss and timelessness, life review, the sensation of traveling through a tunnel and an irreversible threshold. Near-death experiences (NDEs) are comparable among individuals of...
Human consciousness is supported by dynamic complex patterns of brain signal coordination
Science Advances February 1, 2019 Athena Demertzi, Enzo Tagliazucchi, Stanislas Dehaene et al. 545 citations
Adopting the framework of brain dynamics as a cornerstone of human consciousness, we determined whether dynamic signal coordination provides specific and generalizable patterns pertaining to conscious and unconscious states after brain damage. A dynamic pattern of coordinated and anticoordinated functional magnetic resonance imaging signals characterized healthy individuals and minimally...
Memories of near-death experiences: are they self-defining?
Neuroscience of Consciousness 2019 Héléna Cassol, Arnaud D’Argembeau, Vanessa Charland-Verville et al. 16 citations
Some people report memories of near-death experiences (NDEs) after facing situations of impending death and these memories appear to have significant consequences on their lives (here referred to as “real NDE experiencers”; real NDErs). We assessed to what extent NDE memories are considered self-defining: memories that help people to define clearly how they see themselves. We screened 71...
DMT Models the Near-Death Experience
Frontiers in Psychology August 15, 2018 Christopher Timmermann, Leor Roseman, L. Williams et al. 228 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are complex subjective experiences, which have been previously associated with the psychedelic experience and more specifically with the experience induced by the potent serotonergic, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Potential similarities between both subjective states have been noted previously, including the subjective feeling of transcending one's body and...
False memory susceptibility in coma survivors with and without a near-death experience.
Psychological Research July 1, 2018 Charlotte Martial, Vanessa Charland-Verville, Hedwige Dehon et al.
It has been postulated that memories of near-death experiences (NDEs) could be (at least in part) reconstructions based on experiencers' (NDErs) previous knowledge and could be built as a result of the individual's attempt to interpret the confusing experience. From the point of view of the experiencer, NDE memories are perceived as being unrivalled memories due to its associated rich...
Fantasy Proneness Correlates With the Intensity of Near-Death Experience
Frontiers in Psychiatry June 7, 2018 Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol, Vanessa Charland-Verville et al. 70 citations
Little is known about the personality characteristics of those who have experienced a "Near-Death Experience" (NDE). One interesting candidate is fantasy proneness. We studied this trait in individuals who developed NDEs in the presence (i.e., classical NDEs) or absence (i.e., NDEs-like) of a life-threatening situation. We surveyed a total of 228 individuals. From those, 108 qualified as NDE...
Qualitative thematic analysis of the phenomenology of near-death experiences
PLoS One February 14, 2018 Héléna Cassol, Benoît Pétré, Sophie Degrange et al. 131 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) refer to profound psychological events that can have an important impact on the experiencers' (NDErs) lives. Previous studies have shown that NDEs memories are phenomenologically rich. In the present study, we therefore aimed to extract the common themes (referred to as "features" in the NDE literature) reported by NDErs by analyzing all the concepts stored in the...
Near-death experiences: Are they self-defining?
Frontiers in Neuroscience 2018 Héléna Cassol, Arnaud D’Argembeau, Vanessa Charland-Verville et al. 1 citation
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Intensity and memory characteristics of near-death experiences
Consciousness and Cognition July 8, 2017 Charlotte Martial, Vanessa Charland-Verville, Héléna Cassol et al. 24 citations
Memories of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) seem to be very detailed and stable over time. At present, there is still no satisfactory explanation for the NDEs' rich phenomenology. Here we compared phenomenological characteristics of NDE memories with the reported experience's intensity. We included 152 individuals with a self-reported "classical" NDE (i.e. occurring in life-threatening...
Temporality of Features in Near-Death Experience Narratives
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience June 13, 2017 Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol, Georgios Antonopoulos et al. 85 citations
Background: After an occurrence of a Near-Death Experience (NDE), Near-Death Experiencers (NDErs) usually report extremely rich and detailed narratives. Phenomenologically, a NDE can be described as a set of distinguishable features. Some authors have proposed regular patterns of NDEs, however the actual temporality sequence of NDE core features remains a little explored area. Objectives: The...