Abstract
Communication of signals among nodes in a complex network poses fundamental problems of efficiency and cost. Routing of messages along shortest paths requires global information about the topology, while spreading by diffusion, which operates according to local topological features, is informationally "cheap" but inefficient. We introduce a stochastic model for network communication that combines local and global information about the network topology to generate biased random walks on the network. The model generates a continuous spectrum of dynamics that converge onto shortest-path and random-walk (diffusion) communication processes at the limiting extremes. We implement the model on two cohorts of human connectome networks and investigate the effects of varying the global information bias on the network's communication cost. We identify routing strategies that approach a (highly efficient) shortest-path communication process with a relatively small global information bias on the system's dynamics. Moreover, we show that the cost of routing messages from and to hub nodes varies as a function of the global information bias driving the system's dynamics. Finally, we implement the model to identify individual subject differences from a communication dynamics point of view. The present framework departs from the classical shortest paths vs. diffusion dichotomy, unifying both models under a single family of dynamical processes that differ by the extent to which global information about the network topology influences the routing patterns of neural signals traversing the network.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e1006833 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-24 |
Number of pages | 24 |
Journal | PLoS Computational Biology |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 8 Mar 2019 |
Funding
OS was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01-AT009036). PH was supported by the Leenaards Foundation. MPvdH was supported by a NWO-VIDI (452-16-015) and ALW open (ALWO.179) of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and a MQ Fellowship Data were provided (in part) by the Human Connectome Project, WU-Minn Consortium (Principal Investigators: David Van Essen and Kamil Ugurbil; 1U54MH091657) funded by the 16 NIH Institutes and Centers that support the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research; and by the McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience at Washington University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscrip
Funders | Funder number |
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National Institutes of Health | |
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health | R01AT009036 |