Neurological diseases are on the rise – and as societies age, they affect an ever-increasing number of people, not only in Europe, but worldwide. The Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy) investigates how complex neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and multiple sclerosis develop. Even though these diseases differ in their clinical manifestations, overlapping mechanisms are involved in their development. For example, the immune system gets activated in dementia, while brain inflammation can cause nerve cells and their supporting glial cells to degenerate. Using systems neurology as a new interdisciplinary approach, researchers can decipher the shared disease mechanisms of neurovascular, neurodegenerative, and neuroimmunological diseases and on this basis develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. SyNergy has been funded as an Excellence Cluster by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since 2012.