Understanding the effects of the choice of the tree on the joint distribution of a tree-structured Markov random field (MRF) is crucial for fully exploiting the intelligibility of such probabilistic graphical models. Tools must be developed in this regard: this is the overarching objective of this paper. Our discussion is two-fold. First, we examine concepts specific to network centrality theory. We put forth a new conception of centrality for MRFs that not only accounts for the tree topology, but also the underly…