Little is known about the appearance and severity of amygdaloid damage in temporal lobe epilepsy, particularly in its early stages. In the present magnetic resonance imaging study, we measured amygdaloid volumes and T2 relaxation times in 29 patients with newly diagnosed and in 54 patients with chronic temporal lobe epilepsy. The control population included 25 normal subjects. In the newly diagnosed patients, the mean amygdaloid volume did not differ from that in controls. Also, in the chronic patients the mean amygdaloid volume did not differ from that in controls or in newly diagnosed patients. However, in 19% of the chronic patients the amygdaloid volume was reduced by at least 20%. Moreover, in all of the epilepsy patients, both chronic and newly diagnosed, we found an inverse correlation between the number of epileptic seizures the patient had experienced and the amygdaloid volume on the focal side (focus on the left, r = -0.371, P < 0.01; focus on the right, r = -0.348, P < 0.05). The mean T2 relaxation time in newly diagnosed or chronic patients did not differ from each other or from control values. However, the T2 relaxation time of the left amygdala was > or = 111 msec (i.e., > or = 2 S.D. over the mean T2 time of the left amygdala in control subjects) in seven (10%) patients, one of which was newly diagnosed and six were chronic. The T2 time of the right amygdala was prolonged in eight (12%) patients, three of which were newly diagnosed and five were chronic. We did not find any clear asymmetries in amygdaloid volumes or T2 relaxation times between the ipsilateral and contralateral sides relative to seizure focus. According to the present findings, signs of amygdaloid damage were observed in approximately 20% of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, most of which had chronic epilepsy.