Neural networks are parallel computing systems modeled after the human brain that can perform tasks like pattern recognition and data analysis. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are composed of interconnected nodes that operate similarly to biological neurons. ANNs learn by adjusting the weights between nodes from examples to detect patterns in data. The history of ANNs began in the 1940s with early models of neural networks and research into biological neurons. Significant developments continued through the 1960s-1980s with multilayer perceptrons and backpropagation, leading to today's applications of ANNs to complex problems.