The optic nerve disease is a kind of diseases that seriously affect the visual function. In recent years, magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging(DTI)technology has been widely applied in the field of optic nerve diseases. Compared with the ophthalmic testing, such as optical coherence tomography imaging, visual evoked potential, field of vision, this method has obvious advantages. It not only can directly show the morphology changes of the optic nerve, visual pathway and visual cortex, but also can quantitatively analyze the morphological and pathological changes of the optic nerve, visual pathway and the visual cortex. This article reviews the imaging principle of diffusion tensor imaging, the progress and development prospect of diffusion tensor imaging in the study of the optic nerve diseases.