Functional anatomy of the deer spine: an appropriate biomechanical model for the human spine?

The object of this study was to create a database for the biomechanical and certain functional anatomical parameters of the deer spine, for comparison with the human spine. This was done with a view toward using the deer spine as an alternative model for various biomechanical experiments, as it is difficult to procure nonembalmed, fresh human spine specimens. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its human variant, Creutzfeld Jakob disease (CJD), prevent us from using bovine and sheep spine.