title: Spatially constrained adaptive rewiring in cortical networks creates spatially modular small world architectures.
abstract: A modular small-world topology in functional and anatomical networks of the cortex is eminently suitable as an information processing architecture. This structure was shown in model studies to arise adaptively; it emerges through rewiring of network connections according to patterns of synchrony in ongoing oscillatory neural activity. However, in order to improve the applicability of such models to the cortex, spatial characteristics of cortical connectivity need to be respected, which were previously neglected. For this purpose we consider networks endowed with a metric by embedding them into a physical space. We provide an adaptive rewiring model with a spatial distance function and a corresponding spatially local rewiring bias. The spatially constrained adaptive rewiring principle is able to steer the evolving network topology to small world status, even more consistently so than without spatial constraints. Locally biased adaptive rewiring results in a spatial layout of the connectivity structure, in which topologically segregated modules correspond to spatially segregated regions, and these regions are linked by long-range connections. The principle of locally biased adaptive rewiring, thus, may explain both the topological connectivity structure and spatial distribution of connections between neuronal units in a large-scale cortical architecture.
authors.affiliation: Research Group Experimental Psychology, Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, Louvain, 3000 Belgium ; Department of Mathematics, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH UK.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jarman
authors.affiliation: Research Group Experimental Psychology, Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, Louvain, 3000 Belgium.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Trengove
authors.affiliation: Research Group Experimental Psychology, Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, Louvain, 3000 Belgium.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Steur
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH UK ; Saint-Petersburg State Electrotechnical University, Saint-Petersburg, Prof. Popova Str. 5, Saint Petersburg, 197376 Russia.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tyukin
authors.affiliation: Research Group Experimental Psychology, Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, Louvain, 3000 Belgium.
authors.forename: Cees
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: van Leeuwen
keywords: Adaptive rewiring; Coupled chaotic maps; Modular small world networks; Spatial self-organization; Synchronization