Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and subsets of retinal amacrine cells, including AII amacrine cells and dopaminergic amacrine (DA) cells, generate TTX-sensitive action potentials evoked by light stimulus. In RGCs, various types of Na_vα (voltage-gated sodium channel α subunit) mRNAs (Na_v1.1-1.3, 1.6) are expressed (Fjell et al., 1997; Boiko et al., 2003). Distinct sodium channel α subunits localized differentially to the specific region of the same RGC axons (Boiko et al., 2001, 2003; Van Wart et al. 2007). Van Wart et al. (2007) showed that Na_v1.1 and Na_v1.6 localized in the proximal and distal portion of the axon initial segment (AIS) of RGCs, respectively. In contrast, AII amacrine cells mainly express Na_v1.1 mRNA (Kaneko and Watanabe, 2007). Recently, Wu et al. (2011) found that AII amacrine cells have an axon initial segment-like process where Na_v1.1 is localized. In DA cells, distribution of the subtypes is still unknown. To identify the subtypes, we performed in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry using anti-tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) antibody on the rat retina. Double-labeling for pan-specific anti-Na_vα (PAN) antibody and anti-TH antibody was also performed. In this study, we found that subset of DA cells expressed Na_v1.2. Small number of DA cells expressed Na_v1.6 and Na_v1.3. No Na_v1.1-positive DA cells were observed. Furthermore, we found that DA cells had a PAN-labeled process. Our results suggest that DA cells are not characterized by expression of single subtype of Na_vα (like AII amacrine cells). It might be possible that there are specific combinations of more than one subtype of Na_vα in one process of each DA cell.