School of Physics, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Jul 1;107(1):018102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.018102.
It is shown that homogeneous, short-range, two-dimensional (2D) cortical connectivity, without modularity, hierarchy, or other specialized structure, reproduces key observed properties of cortical networks, including low path length, high clustering and modularity index, and apparent hierarchical block-diagonal structure in connection matrices. Geometry strongly influences connection matrices, implying that simple interpretations of connectivity measures as reflecting specialized structure can be misleading: Such apparent structure is seen in strictly uniform, locally connected architectures in 2D. Geometry is thus a proxy for function, modularity, and hierarchy and must be accounted for when structural inferences are made.
研究表明，均匀的、短程的二维（2D）皮质连接，没有模块性、层次结构或其他专门结构，可以再现皮质网络的关键观察特性，包括低路径长度、高聚类和模块性指数，以及连接矩阵中明显的层次块状对角结构。几何形状强烈影响连接矩阵，这意味着将连接度量解释为反映专门结构的简单解释可能会产生误导：在 2D 中严格均匀、局部连接的架构中可以看到这种明显的结构。因此，几何形状是功能、模块性和层次结构的代理，在进行结构推断时必须考虑到它。
