Neural pathways are just pathways. The electrical patterns that reside in the interactions between neurons are necessary for conscious experience. Once the patterns are gone, information is lost. It is like taking a snapshot of a table of moving billiard balls. You only have the position of the balls, but not the velocity, acceleration, etc. And those are necessary to recreate the motion. The "motion" in the case of the brain is what creates the person (as far as anyone currently knows). Having the dead neurons and their dead connections is not enough.