Null models for comparing information decomposition across complex systems
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A key feature of information theory is its universality, as it can be applied to study a broad variety of complex systems. However, many information-theoretic measures can vary significantly even across systems with similar properties, making normalisation techniques essential for allowing meaningful comparisons across datasets. Inspired by the framework of Partial Information Decomposition (PID), here we introduce Null Models for Information Theory (NuMIT), a null model-based non-linear normalisation procedure which improves upon standard entropy-based normalisation approaches and overcomes their limitations. We provide practical implementations of the technique for systems with different statistics, and showcase the method on synthetic models and on human neuroimaging data. Our results demonstrate that NuMIT provides a robust and reliable tool to characterise complex systems of interest, allowing cross-dataset comparisons and providing a meaningful significance test for PID analyses.
Editor(s)
Kumar, Arvind
Date Issued
2025-11-05
Date Acceptance
2025-10-20
Citation
PLoS Computational Biology, 2025, 21 (11)
ISSN
1553-734X
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Journal / Book Title
PLoS Computational Biology
Volume
21
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
© 2025 Liardi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/41191715
PII: PCOMPBIOL-D-24-01786
Subjects
Biochemical Research Methods
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Science & Technology
SERIES
TOPOLOGY
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
e1013629
Date Publish Online
2025-11-05