Eben Alexander III is an American neurosurgeon and author. In 2008, he went under a medically-induced coma while being treated for meningitis. His book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife (2012) describes his near-death experience while in the coma. He asserts that the coma resulted in brain death, that consciousness is not only a product of the brain and that it can go on to an afterlife.