Persistence of observed behaviours under structural heterogeneities (core-periphery and hubs)

Ascertain whether the metastable and chimera behaviours reported for three-layer hierarchically modular Kuramoto-Sakaguchi networks persist when structural heterogeneities such as core-periphery organization and the presence of hub nodes are introduced.

Background

The study intentionally uses structurally homogeneous hierarchical networks to isolate the role of mesoscale modularity in generating metastability and chimera states. The authors note that real brain networks present heterogeneities such as core-periphery structure and hubs (rich club), which are known to alter synchronization pathways in non-frustrated settings.

They emphasize that the robustness and nature of the reported metastable and chimera behaviours in the presence of such heterogeneities remain to be established.

References

The limitations imposed on the system have allowed us to study the effects of the presence of a mesoscale structure in isolation, however, it is unclear if the behaviours we observed would persist with the addition of structural heterogeneities such as core-periphery structures, and, in particular, the presence of hubs.

— Emergence of metastability in frustrated oscillatory networks: the key role of hierarchical modularity  (2405.14542 - Caprioglio et al., 2024) in Section 4 (Discussion)