A device for stimulating neurons that includes a stimulation unit that applies mechanically tactile and/or thermal stimuli to the body surface of a patient that stimulate neurons with a pathologically synchronous and oscillatory neural activity. The device includes a measuring unit that records measurement signals of neural activity of the stimulated neurons, and a controller that controls the stimulation unit and analyzes the measurement signals. The controller actuates the stimulation unit to scan at least one part of the body surface of the patient along a path and thereby periodically applies stimuli and also selects two regions or more regions on the patient's body surface along the path where the phase synchronization between the periodic application of the stimuli and the neural activity of the stimulated neurons have a local maximum using the measurement signals. The stimuli are then applied in a delayed manner in the two regions.