  The understanding of emergent collective phenomena in natural and social
systems has driven the interest of scientists from different disciplines during
decades. Among these phenomena, the synchronization of a set of interacting
individuals or units has been intensively studied because of its ubiquity in
the natural world. In this paper, we show how for fixed coupling strengths
local patterns of synchronization emerge differently in homogeneous and
heterogeneous complex networks, driving the process towards a certain global
synchronization degree following different paths. The dependence of the
dynamics on the coupling strength and on the topology is unveiled. This study
provides a new perspective and tools to understand this emerging phenomena.
