Title: Multiplex core-periphery organization of the human connectome,
Abstract: The behavior of many complex systems is determined by a core of densely
interconnected units. While many methods are available to identify the core of
a network when connections between nodes are all of the same type, a principled
approach to define the core when multiple types of connectivity are allowed is
still lacking. Here we introduce a general framework to define and extract the
core-periphery structure of multi-layer networks by explicitly taking into
account the connectivity of the nodes at each layer. We show how our method
works on synthetic networks with different size, density, and overlap between
the cores at the different layers. We then apply the method to multiplex brain
networks whose layers encode information both on the anatomical and the
functional connectivity among regions of the human cortex. Results confirm the
presence of the main known hubs, but also suggest the existence of novel brain
core regions that have been discarded by previous analysis which focused
exclusively on the structural layer. Our work is a step forward in the
identification of the core of the human connectome, and contributes to shed
light to a fundamental question in modern neuroscience.