In 1844, Edgar Allen Poe wrote a short story — “The Premature Burial” — about a man who lived in constant fear of being buried alive. The man suffered from a disorder that is now referred to as catalepsy, which causes the suffered to spontaneously fall into a deep, death-like trance. His fear, also known as taphophobia (from the Greek for a fear of graves), prompted him to build an coffin equipped with a mechanism to allow him signal for help if ever he woke up to find himself six feet under.

With this story, Poe tapped a widespread fear of being buried alive that plagued many in the 19th century. The Victorians even formed a Society for the Prevention of People Being Buried Alive.

These days, we assume that modern medicine is developed enough to be able to distinguish between life and death. But when it comes to the issue of ‘brain death’, things are not as clear cut as we might wish them to be.

So in this episode, we explore the ideas and the tools that doctors and neuroscientists use to try to make such life and death decisions, with neuroscience blogger extraordinaire, Mo Costandi.

We start with a recent news story about a group that is trying to use brain waves typically associated with dreaming to diagnose different types of unconsciousness…