By virtue of their small size, intracellular recordings of receptor potentials in mechanoreceptive sensory terminals of A&delta and C fibers have not yet been realised. In a new approach we used combined mechanical and electrical stimulation to demonstrate indirectly mechanically evoked receptor potentials in noncorpuscular nerve terminals. To do this we used an isolated preparation of the rat cranial dura mater and extracellular recording of action potentials from the spinosus nerve. A custom built stimulator for mechanical and electrical stimulation was developed to apply time-controlled mechanical and electrical stimuli to the receptive field of functionally single units with highly dynamic fidelity. Both stimuli were applied such that the distance between the sites of application of the two modalities was less than 60 mm. Pre-depolarisation caused by subthreshold mechanical stimulation increased the conduction velocity of the electrically evoked action potential. The increase in conduction velocity reflects the membrane potential at different time points during the subthreshold mechanical stimulus and therefore can be used to demonstrate the evoked receptor potential. As far as we are aware this is the first time that mechanically evoked receptor potentials have been indirectly determined in slowly conducting afferents that are otherwise too small to record receptor potentials intracellularly.