Architectural Dynamics in Living Tissues: Integrating Structure, Physical Fields and Spatial Networks

Biological tissue analyses rely on morphological descriptors like shape, layering and cellular composition. We introduce Architectural Dynamics, a framework that employs more than one hundred quantifiable parameters to define architectural and dynamical properties of a cellular microenvironment, including structural, mechanical, geometrical, physical, network-theoretic, cellular and biochemical features. Biological tissues are portrayed as weighted networks whose nodes and edges carry measurable physical quantities like diffusion conductance, mechanical impedance, curvature and material anisotropy. Standard network metrics like global efficiency, modularity, diameter and centrality acquire physiological meaning as indicators of accessibility, compartmentalization and exposure to mechanical or biochemical cues. In parallel, physical fields such as diffusion, mechanics, curvature and topography generate patterns of transport, signaling, force propagation and communication that link microscale architecture to mesoscale dynamical behavior. Using combined descriptions, we show that behaviors like migration patterns, polarization, domain formation, compartmentalization, metabolic coupling, signal propagation and stability of functional domains emerge from agent dynamics shaped by weighted topology, structural heterogeneity, mechanical anisotropy and geometric confinement. Our perspective shifts the emphasis from cellular identity to quantitative analysis of local physical cues and global topological organization within a high-dimensional architectural space, enabling prediction of cellular behaviors directly from tissue architecture. Changes in development, health or disease correspond to movements along well-defined architectural directions rather than to simple morphological or biochemical alterations. Our framework applies to engineered scaffolds, organoids and regenerative medicine as well as extracellular matrices, cortical microcircuits and pathological architectures like tumors, where the modulation of architectural regimes becomes central to interpreting tissue organization.