Proximity in the Brain

The structural navigability of complex networks is an important question in the function-structure perspective of complex network analysis. This may provide hints on the underlying mechanisms that have been forming the structure of networks for a desirable level of navigation. It has been already discovered that greedy navigational cores as minimalistic networks with 100% greedy navigability considerably present in many real networks, including the structural networks of the human brain. Because the greedy navigational core is not unique, the connection between the level of its presence in a network and the structural navigability of that network is far from clear. In this paper, we deal with a special subset of the greedy navigational core, the so-called greedy proximity links (GPL), whose presence is necessary for 100% greedy navigability of a network. We show that the greedy proximity links are highly present in the brain networks, and the presence is consistent throughout the the individual subjects.