Information Super-Diffusion on Structured Networks

We study diffusion of information packets on several classes of structured networks. Packets diffuse from a randomly chosen node to a specified destination in the network. As local transport rules we consider random diffusion and an improved local search method. Numerical simulations are performed in the regime of stationary workloads away from the jamming transition. We find that graph topology determines the properties of diffusion in a universal way, which is reflected by power-laws in the transit-time and velocity distributions of packets. With the use of multifractal scaling analysis and arguments of non-extensive statistics we find that these power-laws are compatible with super-diffusive traffic for random diffusion and for improved local search. We are able to quantify the role of network topology on overall transport efficiency. Further, we demonstrate the implications of improved transport rules and discuss the importance of matching (global) topology with (local) transport rules for the optimal function of networks. The presented model should be applicable to a wide range of phenomena ranging from Internet traffic to protein transport along the cytoskeleton in biological cells.Comment: 27 pages 7 figure

Model-free reconstruction of neuronal network connectivity from calcium imaging signals

A systematic assessment of global neural network connectivity through direct electrophysiological assays has remained technically unfeasible even in dissociated neuronal cultures. We introduce an improved algorithmic approach based on Transfer Entropy to reconstruct approximations to network structural connectivities from network activity monitored through calcium fluorescence imaging. Based on information theory, our method requires no prior assumptions on the statistics of neuronal firing and neuronal connections. The performance of our algorithm is benchmarked on surrogate time-series of calcium fluorescence generated by the simulated dynamics of a network with known ground-truth topology. We find that the effective network topology revealed by Transfer Entropy depends qualitatively on the time-dependent dynamic state of the network (e.g., bursting or non-bursting). We thus demonstrate how conditioning with respect to the global mean activity improves the performance of our method. [...] Compared to other reconstruction strategies such as cross-correlation or Granger Causality methods, our method based on improved Transfer Entropy is remarkably more accurate. In particular, it provides a good reconstruction of the network clustering coefficient, allowing to discriminate between weakly or strongly clustered topologies, whereas on the other hand an approach based on cross-correlations would invariantly detect artificially high levels of clustering. Finally, we present the applicability of our method to real recordings of in vitro cortical cultures. We demonstrate that these networks are characterized by an elevated level of clustering compared to a random graph (although not extreme) and by a markedly non-local connectivity.Comment: 54 pages, 8 figures (+9 supplementary figures), 1 table; submitted for publicatio