Migraine aura, a predictor of near-death experiences in a crowdsourced study

Daniel Kondziella; Markus Harboe Olsen; Coline L Lemale; Jens P Dreier

doi:10.7717/peerj.8202

Migraine aura, a predictor of near-death experiences in a crowdsourced study

PeerJ. 2019 Dec 4:7:e8202. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8202. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Daniel Kondziella^{1

2}, Markus Harboe Olsen³, Coline L Lemale^{4

5}, Jens P Dreier^{6

4

5

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.
² Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
³ Department of Neuroanesthesiology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁴ Center for Stroke Research Berlin, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
⁵ Department of Experimental Neurology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
⁶ Department of Neurology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
⁷ Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
⁸ Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

Background: Near-death experiences (NDE) occur with imminent death and in situations of stress and danger but are poorly understood. Evidence suggests that NDE are associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep intrusion, a feature of narcolepsy. Previous studies further found REM abnormalities and an increased frequency of dream-enacting behavior in migraine patients, as well as an association between migraine with aura and narcolepsy. We therefore investigated if NDE are more common in people with migraine aura.

Methods: We recruited 1,037 laypeople from 35 countries and five continents, without any filters except for English language and age ≥18 years, via a crowdsourcing platform. Reports were validated using the Greyson NDE Scale.

Results: Eighty-one of 1,037 participants had NDE (7.8%; CI [6.3-9.7%]). There were no significant associations between NDE and age (p > 0.6, t-test independent samples) or gender (p > 0.9, Chi-square test). The only significant association was between NDE and migraine aura: 48 (6.1%) of 783 subjects without migraine aura and 33 (13.0%) of 254 subjects with migraine aura had NDE (p < 0.001, odds ratio (OR) = 2.29). In multiple logistic regression analysis, migraine aura remained significant after adjustment for age (p < 0.001, OR = 2.31), gender (p < 0.001, OR = 2.33), or both (p < 0.001, OR = 2.33).

Conclusions: In our sample, migraine aura was a predictor of NDE. This indirectly supports the association between NDE and REM intrusion and might have implications for the understanding of NDE, because a variant of spreading depolarization (SD), terminal SD, occurs in humans at the end of life, while a short-lasting variant of SD is considered the pathophysiological correlate of migraine aura.

Keywords: Cardiac arrest; Coma; Consciousness; Intensive care; Migraine; Migraine aura; Near-death experience; Out-of-body experience; Rapid eye movement sleep; Spreading depolarization.

Grants and funding

The authors received funding from RH Forskningspulje; R143-A6132-B3632, Savværksejer Jeppe Juhl og Hustru Ovita Juhls Mindelegat; 27062019, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG); DFG DR 323/5-1, DFG DR 323/10-1 and FP7; 602150. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.