The purpose of this study is to evaluate the morphological relevance to cerebral histogenesis and internal vascularization during early fetal development of rats. Using light and electron microscopes, fetal brains and spinal cords from embryonic day 11 (E11) to E 16 were observed with special attention to new blood vessel formation in the parenchyma. At stages of the neural groove and neural tube blood vessels were confined in the perineural mesenchyma around the matrix cell layer whose cytoarchitecture was arranged in a pseudostratified pattern and did not include the blood vessels. At the prosencephalic stage (E 13), primordium of the striatum which localized in the ventrolateral portion of the cerebral neopallium made up the migrating zone in outer most of the matrix cell layer and blood vessels firstly appeared in this area. Similarly, the blood vessels were also recognized at the ventro-lateral portion of the mesencephalon where the migrating zone was initially formed on E 13. In the cervical spinal cord, the blood vessels were initially recognized on E 12, when the migrating zone was formed at the area of anterior horn. At the early telencephalic stage during E 14-E 15, blood vessels were evenly distributed in the lateral cerebral neopallium, while the cerebral neopallium in the midline where took place later evolution than lateral neopallium was still remaining in the state of matrix cell layer only, and was also lacking the blood vessels. In this area, first appearance of the vessels was E 15 or E 16.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)