A method for evolving appropriate connections among units in a neural network includes a) calculating weight changes at each existing connection and incipient connections between units for each training example; and b) determining a K ratio using the weight changes, wherein said K ratio comprises the weight change of existing connections, and wherein if the K ratio the weight change of incipient connections exceeds a threshold, further including b1) increasing a weight of the existing connection; b2) creating new connections at the incipient connections. The method further includes c) pruning weak connections between the units.