Dynamic information routing in complex networks
Christoph Kirst, Marc Timme & Demian Battaglia
Affiliations Contributions Corresponding author
Nature Communications 7, Article number: 11061 doi:10.1038/ncomms11061
Received 01 December 2015 Accepted 16 February 2016 Published 12 April 2016
Source/Fonte: Nature Reviews Genetics
Abstract
Flexible information routing fundamentally underlies the function of many biological and artificial networks. Yet, how such systems may specifically communicate and dynamically route information is not well understood. Here we identify a generic mechanism to route information on top of collective dynamical reference states in complex networks. Switching between collective dynamics induces flexible reorganization of information sharing and routing patterns, as quantified by delayed mutual information and transfer entropy measures between activities of a network’s units. We demonstrate the power of this mechanism specifically for oscillatory dynamics and analyse how individual unit properties, the network topology and external inputs co-act to systematically organize information routing. For multi-scale, modular architectures, we resolve routing patterns at all levels. Interestingly, local interventions within one sub-network may remotely determine nonlocal network-wide communication. These results help understanding and designing information routing patterns across systems where collective dynamics co-occurs with a communication function.
Subject terms: Physical sciences Theoretical physics
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