Balenzuela, PabloRué, PauBoccaletti, StefanoGarcía Ojalvo, Jordi2015-06-182015-06-182014Balenzuela P, Rue P, Boccaletti S, García-Ojalvo J. Collective stochastic coherence and synchronizability in weighted scale-free networks. New Journal of Physics. 2014;16:013036. DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/16/1/0130361367-2630http://hdl.handle.net/10230/23849Coupling frequently enhances noise-induced coherence and synchronization in interacting nonlinear systems, but it does so separately. In principle collective stochastic coherence and synchronizability are incompatible phenomena, since strongly synchronized elements behave identically and thus their response to noise is indistinguishable to that of a single element. Therefore one can expect systems that synchronize well to have a poor collective response to noise. Here we show that, in spite of this apparent conflict, a certain coupling architecture is able to reconcile the two properties. Specifically, our results reveal that weighted scale-free networks of diffusively coupled excitable elements exhibit both high synchronizability of their subthreshold dynamics and a good collective response to noise of their pulsed dynamics. This is established by comparing the behavior of this system to that of random, regular, and unweighted scale-free networks. We attribute the optimal response of weighted scale-free networks to a balance between degree heterogeneity, which ensures a good collective response to noise, and the coupling-strength weighting procedure, which overcomes the paradox of heterogeneity that would otherwise impair synchronization.application/pdfengContent from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.NeuronesCognicióinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/16/1/013036info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess