The nature and amount of essential fatty acids in dietary fat play a leading part in the repartition of brain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 and n-6). In order to determine precisely the respective roles of linolenic and linoleic acids in the diet on rat brain development, we used two diets in which the percentage of linolenic acid (18:3 n-3) was different. The animals were fed peanut oil (group A) or rapeseed oil (group B) during pregnancy and throughout lactation. The study of the fatty acid composition of gastric milk showed that the levels of linoleic acid (18:2 n-6) and more so linolenic acid (18:3 n-3) were much lower than in dietary fats. In group B, the 18:3 n-3 level of gastric content was about four times lower (2.4%) than in the maternal diet (8.5%) at the beginning of the suckling period and significantly increased until weaning. Analysis of the fatty acid composition of ethanolamine phosphoglycerides showed that docosapentaenoic acid delta 7-10-13-16-19 (22:5 n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid delta 4-7-10-13-16-19 (22:6 n-3) levels increased in group B in relation to group A and, on the other hand, the docosapentaenoic acid delta 4-7-10-13-16 (22:5 n-6) level decreased in group B. The sum of (n-3 + n-6) fatty acids did not change in either group B or group A. In our experimental conditions, we found no marked effect of diet composition upon conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid. In summary, linolenic acid can be utilized in the brain (rather than linoleic acid) to provide long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and the amount of n-3 fatty acids would correlate with the desaturation activity of docosatetraenoic acid delta 7-10-13-16 (22:4 n-6) to docosapentaenoic acid delta 4-7-10-13-16 (22:5 n-6).