PROJECT SUMMARY
Without movement, we would be utterly unable to interact with the world. All behaviors, including
speech, writing, reaching, grasping, gaze, walking and posture require the coordinated activities
of many motor areas. Further, sensory signals provide essential feedback to these motor areas,
enabling accurate motor control and motor learning, as well as providing information vital for
deciding future behaviors. As a result, understanding the sensorimotor control of even the most
basic movements, like orienting toward a sudden sound or reaching to pick up a glass of water,
is complex.
Damage to these sensorimotor pathways can produce a wide range of debilitating neurological
disorders including tremor, Parkinson's disease, ataxia, dystonia, and spasticity - all of which
markedly decrease quality of life. The Society for the Neural Control of Movement (NCM) is an
international community of scientists, clinician-investigators and trainees engaged in research
whose common goal is to understand how the brain controls movement and to address the deficits
that occur in disease. NCM promotes a broad range of research using interdisciplinary
approaches (e.g., neurophysiological, anatomical, molecular, computational, and behavioral),
different animal models, and studies of intact subjects and those with neurological disorders.
The inaugural NCM Meeting took place in 1991. The success of the society and its annual meeting
has led to a continual growth in membership, meeting attendance, and the breadth of scientific
content. With support through the NIH, the 2024 NCM meeting will make substantive progress
towards furthering three main goals of the society: Aim 1) Stimulate new research approaches
and collaborations among NCM meeting attendees by identifying new topics and appropriate
scientists as speakers, Aim 2) continue to increase the gender and ethnic diversity within the NCM
leadership and in meeting programing, and Aim 3) promote and support the development of the
next generation of motor control researchers by providing financial and career support for
graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Overall, the unique format of the annual NCM
meeting, with its focus on interdisciplinary approaches, discussion, and scientific interaction in an
intimate meeting environment, is of immeasurable value to furthering worldwide understanding of
how the brain controls movement in both health and disease.