Cascade Correlation is an algorithm to create feed-forward neural network architectures. However, those architectures are not the typical layered architectures. See [my YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E3XZr-bzZ4) for a short explanation of the constructed architecture.
For the "correlation" part, see [this question](http://datascience.stackexchange.com/q/9672/8820).
## Related work
See [Meiosis Networks summary](http://www.shortscience.org/paper?bibtexKey=conf/nips/Hanson89#martinthoma) for many topology learning papers