Paper detail

The influence of spatial configuration in collective transitions: the importance of being sorted

We studied the effects of spatial configuration on collective dynamics in a nearest-neighbour and diffusively coupled lattice of heterogeneous nodes. The networks contained nodes from two populations, which differed in their intrinsic excitability. Initially, these populations were uniformly and randomly distributed throughout the lattice. We then developed an iterative algorithm for perturbing the arrangement of the network such that nodes from the same population were increasingly likely to be adjacent to one another. We found that the global input strength, or network drive, necessary to transition the network from a state of quiescence to a state of synchronised and oscillatory activity was decreased as network sortedness was increased. Moreover, for weak coupling, we found that regimes of partial synchronisation exist (i.e., 2:1 resonance in the activity of the two populations), which were dependent both on network drive (sometimes in a non-monotonic fashion) and network sortedness.