The following sections are included: Precise Timing in the Brain? Feed-Forward Mechanisms: Synfire Chains Recurrent Neural Networks An analytically accessible class of models Related models Basic Collective States of Recurrent Networks Quiescence and synchrony Away from synchrony: first hints towards spike patterns in recurrent networks Asynchrony: Irregular, chaotic, and balanced activity Precise Timing in Recurrent Networks Spike patterns as attractors of recurrent networks Realizing spike patterns in complex networks - An inverse problem Conclusions and Open Questions Acknowledgments References.