BACKGROUND: lead can facilitate the active oxygen-derived free radicals formation, and make many tissue systems in oxidative stress situation especially during the process of lipid peroxidation in cerebral tissue.OBJECTIVE: To establish the dying lead model by making rat offspring to expose to lead during pregnant and breast-feed period, and observe effect of dying lead on the lipid peroxidation in central nervous system of different developmental stages,DESIGN: Randomized controlled study.SETTING: Liaoning Woman and Children Health Care College and Liaoning Tumor Institute.MATERIALS: The experiment was carried out at the Laboratory of China Medical University from June to August 2003. Totally 150 adult Wistar rats was utilized for the experiments. The ratio between female and male was 2:1. Seven days after feeding respectively, female and male rats were put together with the ratio of 2:1. The day in which the sperms were found in vaginal plug or in vaginal secretion was considered gestational day (GD)0 day. And 100 gestational rats were randomly divided into 4 groups, with solution). The lead-treated animals received solution containing lead acetate from GD 0 day, while the control animals received distilled water 5 mL from GD 0 day too, until 21 days after rat offspring giving birth.METHODS: Tissue sampling at the 21st day after rat offspring giving birth, the blood collected by head cutting of 10 rats in each group was used to determine blood lead level; brain tissue of 15 rats in each group was used to determine brain lead level, and the rest was made to be equal slurry to determine the level of lipid peroxidase (LPO), glutathione (GSH),and the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX).and activity of SOD, GSH-PX and CAT of 21-day-old rat offspring among different groups.RESULTS: Data of totally 100 infant rats was entered the final analysis.birth: Lead content of blood and brain of 21-day-old rats offspring in 0.5, 1and 2 g/L lead-treated groups were higher than those in control group observably (P ＜ 0.01), and increased along with increase of the dose of expowas higher than that in control group [(34.56±6.96), (38.76±11.11),(23.33±5.23) mmol/g, P ＜ 0.05-0.01], but activity of SOD in those two groups was lower than that in control group [(423.25±157.70),(426.92±161.53),(542.78±97.69) μkat/g, P ＜ 0.05-0.01].CONCLUSION: Lead, metal toxicant, at moderate and high dosages can induce damage of nervous system during development through accelerating lipid peroxidation of cerebral tissue.