This work presents an investigation of the potential of artificial neural networks for classification of registered magnetic resonance and X-ray computer tomography images of the human brain. First, topological and learning parameters are established experimentally. Second, the learning and generalization properties of the neural networks are compared to those of a classical maximum likelihood classifier and the superiority of the neural network approach is demonstrated when small training sets are utilized. Third, the generalization properties of the neural networks are utilized to develop an adaptive learning scheme able to overcome interslice intensity variations typical of MR images. This approach permits the segmentation of image volumes based on training sets selected on a single slice. Finally, the segmentation results obtained both with the artificial neural network and the maximum likelihood classifiers are compared to contours drawn manually