Every Breath You Take Has a Unique Impact on the Brain

A new study led by researchers at the University of California San Diego shows that the brain does not simply respond to breathing as a steady rhythm. Instead, the detailed shape of each individual breath is closely linked to the shape of neural activity in brain regions involved in cognition, emotion and memory.

The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that the brain is tracking the subtle variations that occur from one breath to the next. A longer inhale, a slower exhale or other changes in the timing and intensity of a breath are reflected in corresponding patterns of neural activity, revealing a much more precise connection between breathing and the brain than traditional measures such as breaths per minute can capture.

"Every single breath is different,” said the paper’s first author Eena Kosik-Rose, a PhD student in the UC San Diego School of Social Sciences’ Department of Cognitive Science. “You can pause your breathing for several seconds, take a super deep breath or have a shallow exhale. What we’re showing is that those differences in the shape of each breath are reflected in the shape of brain activity.”

At its core, the research asks a question rooted in cognitive science and the study of human behavior: How does something as seemingly automatic as breathing interact with the brain processes that shape thought, emotion and perception?