According to a recent study published in the journal Current Biology, a team led by Dr. Noam Sobel and graduate student Timna Soroka from the Weizmann Institute of Science discovered that humans can be identified by their unique nasal breathing patterns with an accuracy of 96.8%. The researchers were able to identify 97 healthy young adults solely based on how they inhale and exhale.
The scientists closely examined how participants breathed over a 24-hour period. One hundred healthy young adults wore a lightweight, portable device with nasal tubes and motion sensors while performing their daily activities and recorded their activities in a mobile app. This device continuously recorded the airflow passing through the nasal passage by being placed under the nose.
"Breathing must be coordinated with almost everything," explained Dr. Sobel, a neurobiologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, according to The New York Times. The study found that breathing is commanded by a complex network in the brain, coordinating with various regions responsible for language, emotion, and motor skills. The researchers discovered that each individual's breathing pattern is unique, with differences from person to person. These patterns subtly change due to factors such as physical activity and mood state, but overall, they serve as stable identifiers, much like fingerprints.
The study demonstrated that these breathing patterns remain stable over long periods, even in sessions separated by nearly two years, functioning as biological signatures. By analyzing the airflow separately for each nostril, the researchers were able to correctly identify more than 95% of participants during wakefulness and about 71% during sleep.
"You would think that breathing has been measured and analyzed in every way. Yet we stumbled upon a completely new way to look at respiration. We consider this as a brain readout," said Dr. Sobel, one of the authors of the study, according to a press release published on EurekAlert. "I thought it would be very difficult to identify someone, since each one would be doing different things, like running, studying, or resting. But, surprisingly, the breathing patterns were incredibly distinct," stated co-author Timna Soroka.
The researchers found potential correlations between breathing patterns and subjects' scores on questionnaires for assessing traits related to anxiety, depression, or autism. For example, individuals who reported anxiety had shorter inhalations during sleep, and their breathing showed more variability. Additionally, the study found that people who scored high on depressive traits shared a tendency to exhale very swiftly.
Depressions and anxieties could be recognized through breathing patterns, and scientists might soon be able to analyze an individual's breathing pattern to diagnose what ails them, offering the promise of "understanding what's behind the idiosyncratic breathing patterns," according to The New York Times. Measuring the connection between breathing patterns and health conditions in a larger number of people could help develop breath analysis as a diagnostic tool, as the device used in the study allows for the detection of subtle and constant patterns in breathing.
However, the current device has limitations, including its appearance, which places tubes inside the nose, potentially reminding participants of illness periods and making it less suitable for daily use. The device cannot record mouth breathing and may shift during sleep. The researchers are now working on a more compact and user-friendly version of the device.
Dr. Sobel and Soroka are also exploring whether people can be taught ways of breathing that might change their biology. "We definitely want to go beyond diagnostics to treatment, and we are cautiously optimistic," said Dr. Sobel, according to EurekAlert. They wonder whether changing breathing patterns can change what happens in the brain and are investigating whether people can mimic healthy breathing patterns to improve their mental and emotional states.
"Although breathing starts with this breathing center in the brain stem, it actually ends up being coordinated with a humongous chunk of your brain," stated Dr. Sobel, as reported by National Geographic. The findings of this study could change the way mental and physical health are monitored. As the authors concluded, "Breathing contains more information than we imagined."
The preparation of this article relied on a news-analysis system.