Breath as a fingerprint: every inhalation leaves its own pattern in the brain

Fingerprints are not repeated. The pattern of the iris is also individual. Now scientists have discovered another surprisingly complex pattern of the human body—breathing. Each breath is slightly different from the previous one, and, as it turned out, the brain is able to reflect these differences in its own electrical activity.

On August 31, 2026, in Journal of Neuroscience a study by Eena Kosik-Rose and her colleagues was published, in which the scientists decided to look at breathing differently. Not just to count the number of breaths per minute or compare inhalation with exhalation, but to investigate the shape of each individual respiratory cycle.

One breath can be short and sharp, another—long and smooth. The intensity of the airflow changes, the duration of exhalation, the ratio between inhalation and exhalation, the shape of peaks and pauses. And it turned out that this variability is reflected in the brain.

The scientists found a connection between the shape of the respiratory wave and the shape of neural oscillations. They called it respiration-neural waveform coupling.

In other words, the brain does not simply follow breathing as if it were the even ticking of a metronome. It reacts to a much finer structure of each individual cycle.

For the study, data from 16 patients with pharmacoresistant epilepsy were used. For medical reasons, they had intracranial electrodes implanted, which made it possible to record brain activity with a precision practically inaccessible to conventional EEG.

Simultaneously, the researchers measured breathing in two ways: by the airflow through the nose and by the movements of the chest or abdomen. Then the two waves—respiratory and neural—were compared cycle by cycle.

Here the main pattern was found. If the shape of breathing changed, so did the associated pattern of neural activity. A longer inhalation, a different character of exhalation, a change in the intensity of the airflow—these features were reflected in the electrical oscillations of the brain.

This results in a kind of neural handwriting of breathing.

But an important caveat is needed here. The study does not prove that breathing can be used to identify a person as reliably as a fingerprint or iris pattern. The comparison with a fingerprint is rather an image that helps to understand how rich and variable the respiratory signal is.

Another result turned out to be especially interesting: the connection with brain activity was significantly stronger when the researchers measured the airflow through the nose than when they recorded the movements of the chest and abdomen.

And this is not the first hint at the special role of nasal breathing.

Back in 2016, Christina Zelano and her colleagues showed that natural breathing through the nose is associated with synchronization of activity in the limbic structures of the brain, including the amygdala and hippocampus—areas closely related to emotions and memory. When breathing through the mouth, this effect became significantly weaker.

The new study adds another level to this picture. For the brain, probably not only the very rhythm of "inhalation-exhalation" matters, but also exactly how the air moves during each respiratory cycle.

And here the study goes far beyond the physiology of the lungs.

The brain does not exist separately from the body. Every second a huge flow of information enters it: the heart contracts, the lungs expand, pressure changes, the concentration of oxygen and carbon dioxide, body position, the state of internal organs. Against this background, emotions, memories, attention, and our sense of our own state are formed.

Therefore, it is increasingly difficult to consider breathing simply as an automatic function that provides the body with oxygen. It is simultaneously a powerful internal rhythm that constantly accompanies the work of the brain.

What is especially unusual is that breathing lies at the boundary of two worlds. Most of the time it happens automatically—we do not need to think about every breath. But if we want to, we can intervene: hold our breath, take a deeper breath, lengthen the exhalation, or completely change its rhythm.

This is precisely why the following question arises: if a change in the shape of breathing is linked to a change in the shape of neural activity, can we consciously influence this process?

Science does not yet have an answer.

The study included only 16 people, and all of them suffered from severe epilepsy. Moreover, the scientists mostly observed natural breathing rather than experimentally controlling its parameters. Therefore, from this work one cannot conclude that a long exhalation improves memory, a certain rhythm reduces anxiety, or that breathing practice can directly alter the state of consciousness.

Other, specially designed studies will be needed for that. But the discovery itself changes the angle of view. No breath is an exact copy of the previous one. Its shape, speed, depth, and duration change. And together with this living wave, the associated pattern of brain activity changes.

Perhaps this is why breathing should be perceived not as the body's metronome, but as a continuous dialogue between the body and the nervous system.