The retina consists of many kinds of central nervous cells, and some cells contain fatty acids such as palmitic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) has a possibility to detect kinds and quantity of materials in relation to the cell or tissue. We applied TOF-SIMS to detect the palmitic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid in the visual cell of the rat retina. We used 4- and 18-month-old normal Wistar Kyoto rats. After pentobarbital anesthesia, the eyes were enucleated, and immediately put into liquid nitrogen without any fixation and then cut into semithin sections (10 mum) with a cryo-ultramicrotome, and laid it on a silicon wafer plate and air-dried. Ion images were detected with TOF-SINIS. Positive ion images were examined with a Ga+ source at an acceleration voltage of 15 keV. The secondary ion acceleration voltage was 4.5 keV In the 4-month-old rat, palmitic and stearic acid were detected in the photoreceptor outer segment and nuclear parts, but not in the inner segment. In the 18-month-old rat, the oleic acid is significantly decreased compared to that in the 4-month-old rat. TOF-SIMS is a useful tool to detect the changes of fatty acids corresponding to changes of physiological conditions in relation to the histological features. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.