Though a predominantly nocturnal animal, the rat has a functional visual system, albeit of low acuity, and has at least a basic form of color vision extending into the UV range. Our aim here was to develop methods to probe this system with both high field fMRI and electrophysiological techniques. Experimental setups in an imaging spectrometer are not ideally suited for studying the visual pathway of the rodent due to stringent physical constraints imposed by the imaging bore size and strong magnetic field. Here we report a method, applicable to both data acquisition scenarios, for specific and reproducible delivery of visual stimuli in fMRI as well as neurophysiology environments. It has the advantage of allowing variation of the stimulus source (e.g. colour of LED) without the need for manipulating the subject in the bore.