The amounts of the mRNAs for the neuropeptide precursor proteins preproenkephalin, preprocholecystokinin and preproneuropeptide Y were measured in the entorhinal cortex of normal rats and rats that had experienced recurrent limbic seizures induced by a small contralateral lesion of the dentate gyrus hilus. Additionally, the amount of mRNAs for preproenkephalin as well as for the cellular proto-oncogenes c-myc, c-fos and c-H-ras, which are thought to be mediators of intracellular signal transduction, was determined in hippocampus in these same animals. It was determined that the hilus lesion led to a dramatic (18-fold) increase in the content of preproenkephalin mRNA in the entorhinal cortex whereas only a modest increase in preproneuropeptide Y mRNA content and no change in preprocholecystokinin mRNA was detected in this same brain region. In hippocampus a large and very rapid increase in c-fos mRNA was observed to precede the previously reported increase in preproenkephalin mRNA following hilus lesion-induced seizures. Like the increase in opioid peptide mRNA, the increase in c-fos mRNA began early in the period of seizure activity and could be blunted by maintaining the animals under anesthesia with the anticonvulsant sodium pentobarbital. Messenger RNA for c-H-ras was not altered at any time following the lesion and c-myc mRNA was not reliably detected in either control or hilus lesioned rats. These data demonstrate that neuropeptide genes within the entorhinal cortex and proto-oncogenes within the hippocampus are differentially regulated by seizure activity and suggest that the c-fos proto-oncogene may be involved in events which mediate the physiological regulation of enkephalin gene expression.