Neural Network:
A neural network (NN) is a network of many simple processors ("units"), each possibly having a small amount of local memory. The units are connected by communication channels ("connections") which usually carry numeric (as opposed to symbolic) data, encoded by any of various means. The units operate only on their local data and on the inputs they receive via the connections. The restriction to local operations is often relaxed during training.
Some NNs are models of biological neural networks and some are not, but historically, much of the inspiration for the field of NNs came from the desire to produce artificial systems capable of sophisticated, perhaps "intelligent", computations similar to those that the human brain routinely performs, and thereby possibly to enhance our understanding of the human brain.
Most NNs have some sort of "training" rule whereby the weights of connections are adjusted on the basis of data. In other words, NNs "learn" from examples (as children learn to recognize dogs from examples of dogs) and exhibit some capability for generalization beyond the training data.
Source: Sarle, W.S., ed. (1997), Neural Network FAQ, part 1 of 7: Introduction, periodic posting to the Usenet newsgroup comp.ai.neural-nets, URL: <a href="ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ.html">ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ.html . See this url for a wealth of additional information.