A single stimulus applied once daily to the limbic system commonly leads to convulsive seizures yet seizures are relatively infrequent during intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS), a procedure that involves many hundreds of similar stimuli. The present study examined the possible role of electrode site, interstimulus interval, afterdischarge and reinforcement thresholds and postictal refractoriness in accounting for this paradox. Electrode location was an overriding factor: seizures were never seen with hypothalamic implants posterior to the level of the ventromedial nucleus but were elicited by the majority of more rostral reward sites. Frequent repeated stimulation by ICSS did not in itself prevent subsequent kindling or reverse the effects of earlier kindling; on the contrary, seizures induced by ICSS showed a progressive increase in severity similar to the progression produced by conventional kindling. Individual convulsive seizures, as in previous studies, conferred transient protection against further seizures whether from ICSS or from kindling. More prolonged protection occassionally developed after repeated convulsive seizures: protection was accompanied by continuous EEG slow-waves corresponding in presentation to clinical petit mal status. Prolonged resistance to seizures has also been reported after tonic-clonic status epilepticus causing temporal lobe damage. The relative infrequency of seizures during ICSS ordinarily appears to depend on the siting of the electrodes, on distinct short- and long-term postictal refractory states, and on the rat learning to restrict stimulus input to subseizural levels.