A gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) method was developed to study the pharmacokinetics of ligustilide following oral administration to rats. The method was used for the analysis of samples taken from rats. Biological samples were prepared by liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) using an n-hexane-ether (2:1) solvent mixture for a sample clean-up step and analyzed by GC/MS with a quadrupole MS detector in selected ion monitoring mode (m/z 190). The calibration curves were linear over the concentration range 0.172-8.60 microg/mL (r > 0.99) for blood samples and a different range (r > 0.99) for different tissue samples. The limit of detection (LOD) was 1.0 ng/mL or 1.0 ng/g (three times the signal-noise ratio). Within- and between-day precision expressed as the relative standard deviation (RSD) for the method was 1.58-3.88 and 2.99-4.91%, respectively. The recovery for all samples was >80%, except for liver samples (>70%). The main pharmacokinetic parameters obtained were: T(max) = 0.65 +/- 0.07 h, C(max) = 1.5 +/- 0.2 microg/mL, AUC = 34 +/- 6 h microg/mL and K(a) = 3.5 +/- 0.6/h. The experimental results showed that ligustilide was easily absorbed, but its elimination was slow, from 3 to 12 h after oral administration. The concentrations of ligustilide in rat cerebellum, cerebrum, spleen and kidney were higher than those in other organs.