The effects of anoxia and hypoxia (3% oxygen) at 10-12 post days of age on the development of ventral hippocampal kindling and its transfer to the contralateral ventral hippocampus were studied in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. During oxygen deprivation, the heart rate decreased to 15% of the prehypoxic value in the animals exposed to anoxia and 40% in those exposed to hypoxia. As is observed in asphyxia of human newborns, our study included both ischemia and hypoxia. The susceptibility to kindling, which was measured by kindling rate, afterdischarge threshold, generalized seizure threshold, and total afterdischarge duration to stage 5, had a tendency to be enhanced in rats exposed to hypoxia compared with controls. The facilitating effects on primary site kindling were enhanced in the animals exposed to hypoxia compared with those exposed to anoxia. Transfer, which was indicated by kindling rate and afterdischarge threshold, was also slightly facilitated in the rats exposed to anoxia or hypoxia in the perinatal period. These results reveal that perinatal oxygen deficiency may not be sufficient to lead to the development of temporal lobe epilepsy. However, it is possible that perinatal hypoxia results in some pathophysiological change in the brain which leads to greater seizure susceptibility in adulthood.