Native speakers: Please proofread my abstract

The following text is the abstract of my master thesis. I'd highy appreciate if a native speaker (or two) could go over the text and check for mistakes. Any help is appreciated!
Thanks, Uhrwerk

I cant define why but for some reason the sentence structure makes it difficult to read, but then again it might be my ignorance on the topic. The beginning is more difficult than the end., also firstly needs a comma after it. To be honest tht sentence is the hardest to read, took a couple times to get the meaning. I dont know how grammatically correct it would be, but to me it would read more naturally as : "The general theoretical background concerning neural networks are illustrated first, as well as some network types and learning rules specifically required for understanding this thesis."

Also I'd probably break it into a smaller sentence.

Firstly seems incorrect. 'First' , 'second or next'(or further more)[to extend a point] , 'Finally or last' {last of all, last of which, last of these} (or lastly)[also feels incorrect] -for last point or summation-. When you begin by counting list-points with 'first' then you should continue to fallow a number scheme .

Also it is just my habit to break 'as well as' with one or two commas. xxxx ,as well as, xxx. I not sure on the grammar rule with the second comma as it doesn't replace a 'and' and the first comma is redundant. But readers who pause at commas may read it better.

But I fallowed your writing fine and understood it even with no subject knowledge. lostclimate is correct in that more compact and specific sentence are better the long structured sentences, even if they do obey grammar rules. But my grammar is subpar for the average native speaker.

Thank you very much for your input, lostclimate and Malice! It's highly appreciated!