First, I would like to thank my advisor Tim Gollisch for giving me the chance to write my PhD in his lab. I am grateful for his continuous support, our discussions, his patience in explaining mathematical concepts and his great knowledge. I learned many things from Tim and I appreciate his exactness and fascination for science. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Jochen Staiger and Jeong Seop Rhee. I appreciated that they shared their knowledge with me

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... nd I enjoyed my thesis committee meetings, the questions and discussions. I also like to thank the members of the extended examination board Marion Silies, Tobias Moser and André Fiala for evaluating my defense. Further, I would like to thank Jochen Staiger, Patricia Sprych and Mirko Witte for sharing with me the procedures of staining individual neurons with neurobiotin. Patricia Sprych was very patient and I enjoyed the days I spent with her at the lab bench. My sincere thanks goes to Mohammad Hossein Khani and Michael Weick. Without their help in building my setup and their support in many technical issues my research would not be possible. Michael Weick taught me how to prepare retinas and shared many of his little tricks with me to reach beautiful recordings. Mohammad Hossain Khani supported me for the multielectrode array recordings and I could ask him any question. I am very grateful to all my colleagues in our group "sensory processing in the retina". I appreciate our lunch breaks and "bakery" breaks. I enjoy our discussions about nonlinearities and other scientific and political problems. I enjoy the late nights, the weekends and dinners we spent together in the lab. I really like our cinema nights! Thank you