The way one breathes could possibly serve as their "nasal fingerprints", researchers said after their study could identify individuals based solely on their breathing patterns with a nearly 97 per cent accuracy.

"You would think that breathing has been measured and analysed in every way. Yet we stumbled upon a completely new way to look at respiration. We consider this as a brain readout," said author Noam Sobel of Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science.

The findings of the study, published in the journal Current Biology, also showed that one's "respiratory fingerprints" correlated with their body mass index, sleep-wake cycle, levels of depression and anxiety, and even behavioral traits.