128020 20250619084224.0 doi 10.1073/pnas.2305001120 sideral 135165 ART-2023-135165 eng Estrada, Ernesto Network bypasses sustain complexity 2023 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted Real-world networks are neither regular nor random, a fact elegantly explained by mechanisms such as the Watts–Strogatz or the Barabási-Albert models, among others. Both mechanisms naturally create shortcuts and hubs, which while enhancing the network’s connectivity, also might yield several undesired navigational effects: They tend to be overused during geodesic navigational processes—making the networks fragile—and provide suboptimal routes for diffusive-like navigation. Why, then, networks with complex topologies are ubiquitous? Here, we unveil that these models also entropically generate network bypasses: alternative routes to shortest paths which are topologically longer but easier to navigate. We develop a mathematical theory that elucidates the emergence and consolidation of network bypasses and measure their navigability gain. We apply our theory to a wide range of real-world networks and find that they sustain complexity by different amounts of network bypasses. At the top of this complexity ranking we found the human brain, which points out the importance of these results to understand the plasticity of complex systems. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/E36-23R-FENOL info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCIU/PID2019-107603GB-I00 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/CEX2021-001164-M info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCINN/EUR2021-122067 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2020-113582GB-I00 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCINN/PID2020-114324GB-C22 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess by-nc-nd http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ 9.4 2023 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES 13 / 134 = 0.097 2023 Q1 T1 3.737 2023 Multidisciplinary 2023 Q1 19.0 2023 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Gómez-Gardeñes, Jesús Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0001-5204-1937 Lacasa, Lucas 2003 395 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Física Materia Condensa. Área Física Materia Condensada 120, 31 (2023), 2305001120 [10 pp.] Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 0027-8424 12400286 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/128020/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada 3577369 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/128020/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada oai:zaguan.unizar.es:128020 articulos driver 2025-06-19-08:41:29 ARTICLE