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Article

Correlation-Induced Accessibility Bridges in Biomedical Networks: A Proof-of-Concept Relational Graph Model

by
Roxana Irina Iancu
1,2,3,
Călin Gheorghe Buzea
4,5,
Florin Nedeff
6,
Diana Mirilă
6,*,
Valentin Nedeff
6,
Mirela Panainte-Lehaduș
6,
Claudia Manuela Tomozei
6,
Maricel Agop
6,
Alina Ștefania Doboș
7,
Dragoş Petru Teodor Iancu
1,2,8,*,
Lăcrămioara Ochiuz
9 and
Decebal Vasincu
9
1
Department of Oral Pathology, “Gr. T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 700115 Iaşi, Romania
2
Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy, “Gr. T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 700115 Iaşi, Romania
3
Department of Clinical Laboratory, “Sfântul Spiridon” Emergency Hospital, 700111 Iași, Romania
4
National Institute of Research and Development for Technical Physics—IFT Iași, 700050 Iași, Romania
5
Clinical Emergency Hospital “Prof. Dr. Nicolae Oblu” Iași, 700309 Iași, Romania
6
Department of Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Agritourism, Faculty of Engineering, “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău, 600115 Bacău, Romania
7
Faculty of Physics, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, 700506 Iași, Romania
8
Department of Radiotherapy, Regional Institute of Oncology, 700483 Iași, Romania
9
Faculty of Medicine, “Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy Iași, 700115 Iași, Romania
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Entropy 2026, 28(7), 769; https://doi.org/10.3390/e28070769 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 8 June 2026 / Revised: 1 July 2026 / Accepted: 4 July 2026 / Published: 7 July 2026
(This article belongs to the Section Complexity)

Abstract

Complex diseases often involve distributed interactions among biological regions, physiological systems, imaging phenotypes, and clinical variables that are not fully captured by anatomical proximity, isolated biomarkers, or conventional feature-based representations. In oncology, neuroimaging, critical care, and systems medicine, distant or apparently separate biomedical sectors may show strong statistical or functional coupling associated with multimodal imaging signatures, inflammatory responses, metabolic constraints, treatment-induced changes, or shared disease-state organization. In this work, we introduce a proof-of-concept relational graph framework for representing such candidate hidden connectivity in terms of correlation-induced accessibility bridges. The novelty of the framework is that it does not treat biomedical correlation, graph distance, and network connectivity as separate descriptors but explicitly couples non-factorizable inter-sector correlation to localized accessibility compression in an emergent disease-state geometry. The proposed framework represents a biomedical system as a weighted relational graph in which nodes correspond to clinically relevant entities, such as tissue regions, imaging-derived features, biomarker modules, physiological variables, or disease states, while weighted edges encode constraints on functional, statistical, or pathological accessibility. Within this structure, coarse-grained biomedical sectors are defined as organized subsystems, and non-factorizable coupling between sectors is quantified using mutual-information-type measures. Candidate biomedical bridges are then defined operationally as localized, high-gain reductions in effective inter-sector accessibility distance. We introduce explicit coupling rules linking sector-level correlation to bridge-specific accessibility compression, including an effective distance-compression model and an ensemble-based formulation. Numerical proof-of-concept simulations on randomized modular graph ensembles show that increasing correlation strength systematically reduces effective inter-sector distance and increases bridge gain. The strongest compression occurs when correlation modulates a designated bridge architecture, exceeding the effects observed under random non-bridge or generic inter-sector modulation. These simulations are not intended to validate a disease-specific biological mechanism but to test whether the proposed correlation–compression rule produces bridge-specific effects distinguishable from null graph perturbations. The resulting structures should not be interpreted as physical anatomical tunnels or direct causal pathways unless supported by additional biological evidence. Rather, they represent correlation-induced accessibility bridges: localized, high-gain routes in a patient- or disease-specific relational geometry. The framework may therefore provide a theoretical and computational basis for prioritizing candidate hidden connectivity patterns in radiomics, multimodal prognosis, physiological deterioration, recurrence modeling, and systems-level disease networks.
Keywords: biomedical networks; disease connectivity; relational graph model; accessibility bridges; mutual information; radiomics; systems medicine; tumor progression; multimodal prognosis; graph-based modeling; correlation-induced accessibility; disease-state geometry biomedical networks; disease connectivity; relational graph model; accessibility bridges; mutual information; radiomics; systems medicine; tumor progression; multimodal prognosis; graph-based modeling; correlation-induced accessibility; disease-state geometry

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Iancu, R.I.; Buzea, C.G.; Nedeff, F.; Mirilă, D.; Nedeff, V.; Panainte-Lehaduș, M.; Tomozei, C.M.; Agop, M.; Doboș, A.Ș.; Iancu, D.P.T.; et al. Correlation-Induced Accessibility Bridges in Biomedical Networks: A Proof-of-Concept Relational Graph Model. Entropy 2026, 28, 769. https://doi.org/10.3390/e28070769

AMA Style

Iancu RI, Buzea CG, Nedeff F, Mirilă D, Nedeff V, Panainte-Lehaduș M, Tomozei CM, Agop M, Doboș AȘ, Iancu DPT, et al. Correlation-Induced Accessibility Bridges in Biomedical Networks: A Proof-of-Concept Relational Graph Model. Entropy. 2026; 28(7):769. https://doi.org/10.3390/e28070769

Chicago/Turabian Style

Iancu, Roxana Irina, Călin Gheorghe Buzea, Florin Nedeff, Diana Mirilă, Valentin Nedeff, Mirela Panainte-Lehaduș, Claudia Manuela Tomozei, Maricel Agop, Alina Ștefania Doboș, Dragoş Petru Teodor Iancu, and et al. 2026. "Correlation-Induced Accessibility Bridges in Biomedical Networks: A Proof-of-Concept Relational Graph Model" Entropy 28, no. 7: 769. https://doi.org/10.3390/e28070769

APA Style

Iancu, R. I., Buzea, C. G., Nedeff, F., Mirilă, D., Nedeff, V., Panainte-Lehaduș, M., Tomozei, C. M., Agop, M., Doboș, A. Ș., Iancu, D. P. T., Ochiuz, L., & Vasincu, D. (2026). Correlation-Induced Accessibility Bridges in Biomedical Networks: A Proof-of-Concept Relational Graph Model. Entropy, 28(7), 769. https://doi.org/10.3390/e28070769

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