Dynamic information routing in complex networks

TL;DR

This paper uncovers a universal mechanism for dynamic information routing in complex networks, leveraging collective dynamical states and their reorganization to facilitate flexible communication patterns, with implications for biological and artificial systems.

Contribution

It introduces a generic mechanism for routing information based on collective dynamics, analyzing how network properties influence routing and enabling multi-scale pattern resolution.

Findings

Switching collective dynamics reorganizes information sharing.

Local interventions can influence global communication.

Routing patterns depend on network topology and external inputs.

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 generic mechanism specifically for oscillatory dynamics and analyze how individual unit properties, the network topology and external inputs coact 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 non-local network-wide communication. These results help understanding and designing information routing patterns across systems where collective dynamics co-occurs with a communication function.