The Review of scientific instruments
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We have designed, built, and tested an apparatus used for investigating the biomechanical response of a novel intradural spinal cord stimulator to the simulated physiological movement of the spinal cord within the thecal sac. In this apparatus, the rostral-caudal displacements of an anthropomorphic spinal cord surrogate can be controlled with a resolution of approximately 0.1% of a target value for up to 10(7) lateral movement cycles occurring at a repetition rate of 2 Hz. ⋯ The result is a positional stability of the array on the surrogate (in air) of better than 0.2 mm over ~500,000 movement cycles. Design modifications that might lead to improved physiological performance are discussed.