Abstract: Optical imaging based on intrinsic signals is a newly emerged technique to detect the functional signals in the brain.Since it has no toxic effect and could provide a high spatial resolution it has been widely used in the functional architecture study of the visual,auditory and somatosensory cortex.In this paper,we introduced the recent progress on the vision research using this technique,and compared it with other brain functional imaging technique and single unit recording.We established the first optical imaging system in China.Using this system,the orientation map has been successfully recorded in the primary visual cortex in the cat at different depths,By now,a lot of work has been done with the system recently.