Death + Biology

Dead Men Do Talk. Sometimes.

First Interview with a Dead Man
Helen Thomson, NewScientist Mindscapes (May 23 2013)

Cotard’s syndrome is one of those rare conditions a person reads about in the historical literature but rarely, if ever, comes across today. Cases do pop up, but they’re often missed. In a nutshell, a person (who is very much alive) believes that he or she is dead. Sometimes an individual’s limbs will feel as if they’re dead.

NewScientist has a fantastic, short article on a man suffering from Cotard’s syndrome but what’s really important is that doctors got a scan of the man’s brain. Lo and behold, the frontal and parietal lobes resembled those regions of the brain but for a person in a persistent vegetative state.

The entire article is worth reading.

The radio progamme Radiolab also did a short piece on Cotard’s syndrome in July 2009.