Dr. Charles Legendy's Circuits in the Brain: A Model of Shape Processing in the Primary Visual Cortex is published at a time marked by unprecedented advances in experimental brain research which are, however, not matched by similar advances in theoretical insight. For this reason, the timing is ideal for the appearance of Dr. Legendy's book, which undertakes to derive certain global features of the brain directly from the neurons.

Circuits in the Brain, with its "relational firing" model of shape processing, includes a step-by-step development of a set of...