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A real-time automated way of quantifying metabolites from in vivo NMR spectra using an artificial neural network (ANN) analysis is presented. The spectral training and test sets for ANN containing peaks at the chemical shift ranges resembling long echo time proton NMR spectra from human brain were simulated. The performance of the ANN constructed was compared with an established lineshape fitting (LF) analysis using both simulated and experimental spectral data as inputs. The correspondence between the ANN and LF analyses showed correlation coefficients of order of 0.915-0.997 for spectra with large variations in both signal-to-noise and peak areas. Water suppressed 1H NMR spectra from 24 healthy subjects were collected and choline-containing compounds (Cho), total creatine (Cr), and N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) were quantified with both methods. The ANN quantified these spectra with an accuracy similar to LF analysis (correlation coefficients of 0.915-0.951). These results show that LF and ANN are equally good quantifiers; however, the ANN analyses are more easily automated than LF analyses., (Copyright 1998 Academic Press.)