Gene therapy has increasingly shown a significant role in clinical trials in recent years, and has become a new treatment for the central nervous system diseases which conventional methods are difficult to cure. Herpes simplex virus(HSV), a common human natural pathogen, has a natural neural tropism and can naturally infect post-mitotic neurons from retrograde infection of peripheral nerves into the central nervous system(CNS)and has a long-term incubation. Therefore, HSV can be used as a means of delivery of exogenous genes. The optic nerve belongs to the CNS, thus, HSV vectors may be considered for gene therapy after optic nerve injury. In this paper, we reviewed the research progress of HSV as a vector for gene therapy after CNS injury and explained the feasibility of HSV for gene repair after optic nerve injury.