In both anaesthesia and sleep, the subject loses consciousness. However, there are also several differences between them, e.g. a sleeper can be woken up by external stimuli in contrast to an a subject under general anaesthesia.

This group is intended for those interested in cellular and network mechanisms and the functional significance of normal and pathological synchronization and oscillations observed in small invertebrate to large cortical neuronal networks.

This group focuses on modeling the activity of neural masses, rather than of individual neurons. Of particular interest are "mean field" type of methods: their mathematical analysis, numerical computation, and "real world" application.