dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaStructured thalamocortical connectivity revealed by random walks on complex networks
| Authors | Luciano da Fontoura Costa, Olaf Sporns |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0602021 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0602021 |
Abstract
The segregated regions of the mammalian cerebral cortex and thalamus form an extensive and complex network, whose structure and function are still only incompletely understood. The present article describes an application of the concepts of complex networks and random walks that allows the identification of non-random, highly structured features of thalamocortical connections, and their potential effects on dynamic interactions between cortical areas in the cat brain. Utilizing large-scale anatomical data sets of this thalamocortical system, we investigate uniform random walks in such a network by considering the steady state eigenvector of the respective stochastic matrix. It is shown that thalamocortical connections are organized in such a way as to guarantee strong correlation between the outdegree and occupancy rate (a stochastic measure potentially related to activation) of each cortical area. Possible organizational principles underlying this effect are identified and discussed.
{
"annotation_id": "983ca699-fe08-4b86-86b4-e4aaa1d13e73",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:35.710000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:35.710000Z",
"file_hash": "a21a008cfa350677de1b5bcc48192766d220bd67249410361ded96179576dcf9",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "The segregated regions of the mammalian cerebral cortex and thalamus form an\nextensive and complex network, whose structure and function are still only\nincompletely understood. The present article describes an application of the\nconcepts of complex networks and random walks that allows the identification of\nnon-random, highly structured features of thalamocortical connections, and\ntheir potential effects on dynamic interactions between cortical areas in the\ncat brain. Utilizing large-scale anatomical data sets of this thalamocortical\nsystem, we investigate uniform random walks in such a network by considering\nthe steady state eigenvector of the respective stochastic matrix. It is shown\nthat thalamocortical connections are organized in such a way as to guarantee\nstrong correlation between the outdegree and occupancy rate (a stochastic\nmeasure potentially related to activation) of each cortical area. Possible\norganizational principles underlying this effect are identified and discussed.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0602021",
"authors": [
"Luciano da Fontoura Costa",
"Olaf Sporns"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.NC",
"cond-mat.dis-nn",
"physics.comp-ph"
],
"title": "Structured thalamocortical connectivity revealed by random walks on complex networks",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0602021"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "5f1a40d8-84af-4a34-945c-9b1004bb2d38",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}