From human to insects, the sensory system is the part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information. Commonly recognized sensory systems include vision, hearing/auditory, smell/olfactory, taste/gustatory and somatic sensation. The research on sensory system investigates peripheral sensory neurons, neural pathways, and the more central brain involved in sensory perception. Chinese neuroscientists have been working to decode the sensory system for years. With improved fundings and research environment in recent years, significant progress has been made in neuroscience [1,2]. Here we review some recent advances in the basic research on sensory system in China.A critical step to understand vision is to know how and where the visual perception is processed. Various Chinese research institutions and universities have made progress in vision research [3]. With fMRI and computational approaches, Fang and colleagues in Peking University have made a series of important findings on the neural mechanisms of human visual processes. Their findings suggested, for the first time, that the bottom-up saliency map is created in the V1 area, challenging the dominant view that the saliency map is generated in the parietal cortex [4]. They further found the effect of visual perceptual grouping --enhancing the high-level shape representation and attenuating the low-level feature representation [5].Research on visual processing in the cortex by Li's group (Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) showed that the feedback projection from area posteromedial lateral suprasylvian (PMLS) can enhance the direction selectivity of striate neurons but exert little effect on the orientation tuning in cats, indicating an important role of PMLS in visual motion processing in the cerebral cortex [6]. Investigation on visual perception in mice by Zhu and coworkers (Southwest Forestry University, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) focused on the effects of different object properties. They took an interesting approach to use a behavioral paradigm to study the effect of different visual cues in visual perception [7], and found that mice could distinguish and extract topological properties of the objects [8].The auditory system takes part in sound signal recognition and signal processing with central auditory neurons [9]. While previous studies of human sound level discrimination were always performed in monaural conditions, Zhang's group (East China Normal University) focused on preceding sound level discrimination in binaural conditions. Their results showed that the just noticeable difference (JND) of the low level preceding sound could not show significant effects compared with no sound (quiet), while moderate to high levels of preceding sound significantly increased the JND of the level of the successive sound [10]. Taking advantages of the hypertrophied auditory systems in bats, which are relatively easy to study, Chen and colleagues (Central China Normal University) investigated the inf...