The early 1900s was a period of disinterest in the topic, only marked by occasional contributions, including the commentaries of Gardner Murphy and the research of Donald West.
[13][11] N Early contributions to the field of near-death studies also include the work of Russell Noyes, who collected NDE stories from personal accounts and medical records.
[3] According to commentators his work signalled the first big shift in perspective within the field, pulling the methodology away from parapsychology and towards the principles of medicine.
[14][15][10] According to literature[10] Noyes and Kletti's 1977-article, "Depersonalization in Response to Life-threatening Danger”, is the most cited article in the field of Near-death studies, as of 2011.
The late seventies saw the establishment of the Association for the Scientific Study of Near-Death Phenomena, an initial group of academic researchers, including John Audette, Raymond Moody, Bruce Greyson, Kenneth Ring and Michael Sabom, who laid the foundations for the field of near-death studies, and carried out some of the first NDE research in the wake of Moody's work.
Besides contributing material to academic journals,[25] he wrote a book called Recollections of Death (1982)[26] which is considered to be a significant publication in the launching of the field.
The authors used questionnaires, interviews, and medical records in order to study the phenomenology of NDEs and suggested that social and psychological factors explained some, but not all, components of the NDE.
[41][10] The responses from near-death experiencers later served as the basis for his book published in 1997, The Truth in the light, co-authored with his wife Elizabeth Fenwick.
Early investigations into the topic of near-death experiences were also conducted at the University of Virginia, where Ian Stevenson founded the Division of Perceptual Studies in the late sixties.
[11][48] Stevenson, whose main academic interest was the topic of reincarnation and past lives,[49][50] also made contributions to the field of near-death studies.
In a prospective study from 2001, conducted at Southampton General Hospital, Parnia and colleagues found that 11.1% of 63 cardiac-arrest survivors reported memories of their unconscious period.
[46]Note c Greyson[61] conducted a 30-month survey of patients admitted to the cardiac inpatient service of the University of Virginia Hospital.
In a study from 2010 Klemenc-Ketis and colleagues reported on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivors, later admitted to intensive care units, at medical centers in Slovenia.
[66] Based on the results from an analysis of scholarly NDE-related periodical literature, the decade between 2001 and 2011 signaled an expansion of the field of near-death studies by including new authors and new publication venues.
They found, among other things, that combat soldiers reported "less intense" near-death experiences, compared to NDErs in the civilian population.
[68][69][70][71][72][59] In the study Parnia and colleagues[68] found that 9% of patients who completed stage 2 interviews reported experiences compatible with NDEs.
Other researchers with a large output of material includes P. M. H. Atwater and neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick [10] Explanatory models for the phenomenology and the elements of the NDE can, according to sources,[6][46][53][51][54][74][75] be divided into a three broad categories: psychological, physiological, and transcendental.
Other researchers, such as Parnia, Fenwick,[44] and Greyson,[11][81] have argued for an expanded discussion about the mind-brain relationship as well as the possibilities of human consciousness.
However, Greyson notes that although the index is a "pioneering effort", it is not based on statistical analysis, and has not been tested for internal coherence or reliability.
[92] The instrument has been used to measure attitudes toward, and knowledge of, near-death experiences in a college population,[94] among clergy,[95] among registered psychologists,[92] and among hospice nurses.
One of the most influential is IANDS, an international organization based in Durham, North Carolina, US, that promotes research and education on the phenomenon of near-death experiences.
[6] IANDS also publishes Vital Signs, a quarterly newsletter that is made available to its members and that includes commentary, news and articles of general interest.
The topic attracts a lot of interest, which is reflected in search engine results, medical literature, opinion pieces and commentary.
While there is not yet any academic consensus as to what the philosophical implications of NDE studies might be, the question of whatever the true and fundamental nature of human consciousness might be yet remains both unanswered, and highly contentious.
They note that: "Longer-term outcomes may have been biased by clinical characteristics and comorbidities, rather than near-death experiences, and this should remain a pertinent consideration".
Skeptics have remarked that it is difficult to verify many of the anecdotal reports that are being used as background material in order to outline the features of the NDE.
This includes theories that present a challenge to modern neuroscience by suggesting a new understanding of the mind-brain relationship in the direction of transcendental, or paranormal, elements.
Jason Braithwaite, a Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, University of Birmingham, issued an in-depth analysis and critique of the survivalist's neuroscience of some NDE researchers, concluding, "it is difficult to see what one could learn from the paranormal survivalist position which sets out assuming the truth of that which it seeks to establish, makes additional and unnecessary assumptions, misrepresents the current state of knowledge from mainstream science, and appears less than comprehensive in its analysis of the available facts.
"[126] Martens[90] noted the "lack of uniform nomenclature", and "the failure to control the studied population with an elimination of interfering factors", as examples of criticism directed towards near-death research.
In an open letter to the NDE community Ring has pointed to the "issue of possible religious bias in near-death studies".