Michelle Dickinson: nanotechologist on the new research revealing how our unique nasal 'fingerprints' could help health system

What if your next medical test involved breathing into a tube instead of drawing blood? 

A new study out this week published in the journal Current Biology has discovered that every human has a way of breathing through their nose that is so unique to them, it can be used to identify individuals with incredible accuracy. 

These personal "nasal respiratory fingerprints" may even hold powerful clues about your health, your mood, and even how your brain works. 

We often take our breath for granted. But behind every inhale and exhale is a complex web of brain networks working quietly in the background. 

The researchers attached tiny wearable device placed in a nasal cannula (like a mini oxygen tube) for 24-hour recordings on 100 volunteers. They found that a computer could identify individuals from their breathing patterns with up to 97 percent accuracy and this pattern remained stable for nearly two years. 

The researchers found that these unique breathing patterns, could predict a person’s Body Mass Index (BMI), arousal state, and even levels of anxiety, depression, and traits related to autism. 

They found that: 

People with higher anxiety levels tended to take shorter inhales during sleep. 

Higher depression scores were linked to stronger nasal airflow and longer pauses after breathing out. 

And people with higher autism traits showed longer pauses between breaths and more variability in how they inhaled. 

All this was measured passively, just from how air flows in and out of the nose. 

The nose is more than just a smell detector, it’s closely linked to the brain’s emotional and cognitive circuits. Previous research has even shown that the rhythm of nasal breathing can sync up with brain waves and influence memory, attention, and emotion. 

This study supports the idea that breathing, especially through the nose, is more than a life-sustaining reflex. It’s a mirror of our inner world. 

The potential of this new discovery is huge! If nasal breathing patterns can reflect not only who we are but also how we feel and function, then this non-invasive technique could become a powerful tool in health monitoring, mental wellness, and neuroscience. 

Instead of detecting early signs of depression or anxiety with a questionnaire, you could potentially diagnose in just a day's worth of breath. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB and with her science study of the week. Doctor
Sheldkinson joins me, Now, good morning, good morning. Breathing is
something we all take for granted. You just don't realize
what you're doing. We don't realize we're doing it. And
as I learned last year, I'm very bad at it.
I've got better at it. I've had to learn how
to breathe. But our brief could be used for some
really interesting medical results diagnosing.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
This is another lovely study. It's in the General Current Biology.
You can have a read of it if you want.
It's open source. And what they did is they took
a hundred volunteers and they put like a little canulate
in their nose. So imagine if you're in hospital and
have like sometimes you have the oxygen your knows like
you just can't go all the way up your nose.
It just sort of sits on the bottom of your
nostrils and then it measures your air coming out of
your notes. Now, this is a very specific study on

(00:58):
how you breathe out of your nose, not out of
your mouth. This is they say, that's very important. And
what they did is they took these hundred volunteers and
they wore this canula for twenty four hours and they
just measured every single breath they took, how deep it was,
how often it was, what they were doing, and really
they focused on when they were asleep, because actually your
breath stabilizes typically when you're asleep. And they took all

(01:19):
of this data, they programmed it into some machine learning,
and then they sent the people away for two years,
and then they brought them back two years later and
they did the same test, and they found that they
were able to identify the person who was breathing just
by their nasal breath measurement with a ninety seven percent
accuracy two years later, meaning that we don't change the

(01:40):
way that we breathe, and we all have a breathing fingerprint,
like we all breathe really differently. And they went, that's interesting,
I wonder why we all breathed differently. And so then
they started going into things like looking at the people
and trying to understand if the people were different and
there was anything going on, and they found that you
can determine whether or not somebody has higher anxiety levels

(02:03):
by their breathing because they have short it inhales their sleep.
You can also determine whether somebody has a higher depression
score because they have a stronger nasal airflow and they
have longer pauses after their breathing. And you can determine
if people have higher autism traits because they have longer
pauses between their breasts and there's more variability between their breasts.

(02:25):
So they're able to diagnose these things so quickly just
by breathing in. And if you think about how you
do a depression score, normally you would have to fill
out all these questionnaires, go see a therapist. And they
were like, you could do that, or you could just
breathe into the stube where you're sleeping and we might
be able to help you decide if you're high risk
or not.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
So is the way we breathe really as unique as
a fingerprint.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
That's what they said they were. And so at last
week I was talking about clapping being your fingerprint. I
feel like we have all these fingerprints, and now this week,
we're breathing is our fingerprint too. So they said that
we're in ninety seven percent accuracy, and they said, no
patient breathed even closely to alike. They're able to determine that.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
If you ask people, though, they will probably be able
to identify. If you put them in a room, a
dark room and they lay there with someone, they would
be able to identify the partner probably by the way
they breathe.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
You.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
You'd be able to go, yeah, that one's mine.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
And I don't know because I have that weird thing
where I less it like sounds annoy me. You have
it too, Yeah, yeah, but breathing sounds. If people breathe
like it really bugs me, I can hear them at
the other end of a room, So I might be
able to identify lots of different people because it's the
thing that gives me my gripes. But anyway, yeah, so
we all breathe totally differently. But imagine if instead of
having to go to see a therapist or even what
you could do is just do a breathing test once

(03:32):
a month and it might go, hey, you're at higher risk,
or we can see from your last night's breathing that
you're at higher risk of this. You might want to
go see somebody about your anxiety or depression, or maybe
you've got autism. And these are just a few of
the things that they looked at. They're going to increase
the size of the people to bring in people who
have different challenges and see if they can actually diagnose
different things. Just by the power of your names.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
I've probably discovered a few breathing disorders in there as well.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
But it's also different how it connects to your brain.
And so that's why things like controlled breathing really help
to reset your mind in your brain and really can
help to help you with mood and other things. And
we sort of know that, but I think some of
us don't really believe it. But if you do do
some of those good breathing exercises, this study shows you
that it can do a lot. And breathing is related

(04:18):
to your brain and how your mood is.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Where can we find that study?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Michelle, Current Biology brilliant.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Thank you so much. We'll catch up next week for
more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudken. Listen live
to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.