The Nose Knows: Humans’ Nasal Breathing Patterns Are Like Fingerprints, Israeli Scientists Find
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have discovered that a person’s unique pattern of nasal breathing can be used to identify them with an accuracy of 96.8%.
Their study revealed that nasal breathing patterns serve as highly individualized “signatures,” functioning similarly to voice biometrics in terms of identifying people.
The team also uncovered a powerful connection between breathing and brain activity, which could be used to glean insights into an individual’s physical and mental state, including factors such as body weight, anxiety, and depression levels.
“Are we depressed and therefore breathe differently, or do we breathe in a certain way that makes us feel depressed?” asked PhD student Timna Soroka, a member of the Olfaction Research Group, in an email to The Times of Israel.
According to Soroka, the findings raise the possibility that if altered breathing leads to depression, “then this opens the door to new interventions and treatments based on breath.”
The Olfaction Research Group’s work centers around understanding the neurological basis of smell—how it’s processed by the brain—and its influence on both behavior and overall health.
In mammals, the brain deciphers scents as a person inhales, and the researchers wondered whether this connection might mean that a person’s unique neural activity would manifest in equally unique breathing patterns.
“You would think that breathing has been measured and analyzed in every way,” said Sobel. Still, their team was intrigued by the idea that breathing could be distinctive enough to identify individuals.
Typically, clinical breathing tests last just a few minutes and are used for diagnosing health conditions. But the researchers believed these brief assessments missed the intricacies of a person’s respiratory behavior. To capture more nuanced data, they created a lightweight wearable that monitors nasal airflow for an entire day, using soft tubing placed in the nostrils.
“As far as we know,” said Soroka, “we developed a new way to study respiration. Not over short durations, but rather as a long-term time series.”
The device was tested on 100 young adults who had been assessed for behavioral and psychological health. Participants wore the gear while going about their daily routines.
Even after nearly two years, the researchers were able to correctly identify individuals based on their breathing patterns with high accuracy.
The accuracy rate was comparable to that of leading voice recognition systems.
“I thought it would be really hard to identify someone because everyone is doing different things, like running, studying, or resting,” said Soroka. “But it turns out their breathing patterns were remarkably distinct.”
The researchers initially believed breathing would show some uniqueness per person, but Soroka admitted, “We were surprised by how strong the effect was.”
Their study also found that these respiratory patterns reflected the participants’ emotional and mental states.
Those who showed higher anxiety levels, for instance, tended to have quicker inhalations and more irregular pauses between breaths during sleep.
“This suggests that long-term nasal airflow monitoring may serve as a window into physical and emotional well-being,” the researchers said.
They are now exploring whether intentionally adopting healthier breathing rhythms can positively influence emotional health.
“We definitely want to go beyond diagnostics to treatment, and we are cautiously optimistic,” Sobel said.
In 2024, their earlier research revealed that people with Parkinson’s disease had longer and more uniform nasal inhalations compared to healthy subjects. This distinction enabled the researchers to accurately identify individuals with the disease and assess its severity.
They are hopeful that further studies will determine if breathing patterns can be harnessed to detect Parkinson’s and other medical conditions earlier.
{Matzav.com}
