In this study, a fully unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was used and the transient airflow properties during the entire breathing cycle, including inhalation and exhalation in a human nasal cavity, were evaluated. Unsteady particle tracking was performed to find the particle motion and deposition in the nasal airway using a Lagrangian approach. In most of earlier computer simulations, the assumption of quasi-steady or steady airflows averaged over the inhalation cycle were typically used to reduce the computational cost. In the present work particular attention was given to assessing the accuracy of these assumptions and their consequence on particle deposition in a human nasal cavity with paranasal sinuses. The simulation results for the airflow field showed significant differences between the unsteady and quasi-steady cases at low breathing rates near the beginning and end of the inspiration cycle. For breathing under a rest condition with a frequency of 0.25 Hz, the quasi-steady airflow assumption in the nasal cavity was found to be reasonable when the instantaneous Strouhal number was smaller than 0.2. The instantaneous deposition of micro-particles was also studied, and the effects of unsteady accelerating and decelerating flows on the deposition fraction were examined. The simulation results showed that the deposition fractions were affected by the accelerating and decelerating airflows during the inhalation phase. The simulated micro-particle depositions under the cyclic breathing condition were compared with those for steady breathing with an equivalent mean airflow rate. It was found that while the general trend was similar, the steady breathing simulation with the mean airflow rate during inhalation cannot accurately predict the total micro-particle deposition for cyclic breathing, particularly for 1-5 mu m particles. Furthermore, the predicted regional depositions by the steady breathing were markedly different from those obtained under cyclic breathing. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.