Vaccination or treatment of Lewis rats with TCR V beta 8 peptides can prevent or reverse the clinical signs of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) which is mediated predominantly by V beta 8.2+ CD4+/CD45R lo T cells. However, rats protected or treated with V beta 8 peptides still developed histological lesions in the spinal cord (SC), even though they remained clinically well. We sought to discern phenotypic changes characteristic of these SC infiltrating lymphocytes. In particular, we focused on whether the immunoregulatory mechanism induced by TCR peptides caused a reduction of V beta 8.2+ T cells, or induced changes in CD45R lo or hi/CD4+ subpopulations that have been associated respectively with EAE induction or recovery. In the V beta 8 peptide vaccinated rats there was a dramatic decrease in the number of V beta 8.2+ T cells isolated from the SC early in disease. During the recovery phase, however, the number of V beta 8.2+ SC T cells was similar in protected and control groups; in contrast, there was striking reduction in the number and size of CD45R hi/CD4+ T cells in the protected animals. In rats treated with V beta 8.2 peptide, no changes were observed in the number of SC V beta 8.2+ T cells or expression of V beta 8.2 message, but similar to vaccinated rats, there was a marked decrease in the number of CD45R hi/CD4+ T cells. These data suggest that vaccination with TCR peptides prevented the initial influx of encephalitogenic V beta 8.2+ T cells into the central nervous system (CNS), whereas treatment appeared to inactivate V beta 8.2+ T cells already present in the CNS. In both cases, TCR peptide-induced inhibition of the encephalitogenic T cells apparently preempted the need for CD45R hi/CD4+ T cells that may normally be necessary to resolve the disease.