Abstract Submission
Our members drive the NCM Annual Meeting program. Your perspectives, research, ideas and outlook ensure a rigorous meeting program while providing valuable contributions to ongoing research on motor control.
Abstract Submission Guide
The Annual Meeting offers a variety of presentation formats, including Team Oral(Panel, Perspective, Tutorial), Individual Oral, and Poster sessions. All sessions are designed to be informative and engaging for all participants at the meeting and to promote vigorous discussion, both at sessions and during breaks.
The NCM Board and Program Chair strive to have a balanced and diverse podium and encourage submissions, particularly for Oral presentations, from all membership categories and geographic regions, as well as from individuals from under-represented groups.
In previous years, Team Oral submissions have had a higher chance of acceptance than Individual Oral submissions.
If you submit for an Individual Oral presentation, you will have the opportunity to be considered for a poster presentation also (whether or not your abstract is accepted for an oral presentation) and can indicate your interest in the submission form.
If you are a trainee and are submitting an abstract for an Oral presentation (Team or Individual), you may be eligible to apply for a scholarship. Please see the scholarship page for more information.
In addition to the main meeting, the Satellite Meeting on New Frontiers at the Intersection of Cognition and Motor Control, will also be accepting submissions for oral presentations from trainees only. Further information can be found on the Satellite Meeting web page.
Accepted abstracts will be available on the meeting website.
Submission Deadlines
For the 2025 Annual Meeting, the following submission schedule has been established. Please refer to the submission guidelines for each of these submission types (Team, Individual) prior to submitting your abstract. Note: You must be an NCM member in good standing to submit an abstract.
Team (Multi-Author) and Individual (Oral) – Now Closed
Submission Opens: October 7, 2024
Submission Closes: December 2, 2024
Individual (Poster) – Now Open
Submission Opens: October 7, 2024
Submission Closes: February 17, 2025
Satellite – Now Closed
Submission Opens: October 23, 2024
Submission Closes: December 2, 2024
*Submission deadlines are midnight PST on the indicated submission date.
IMPORTANT: Notifications of accepted oral abstracts are issued via email at the end of January and scholarships are issued via email mid-February. Notifications of poster acceptances are expected to be sent by early March. If you have not received a confirmation email from us by March 10th, please contact us.
Did you know?
Gender Across Membership
In 2021 only 34% of our membership identified as female.
Podium Presenters
In 2021 44% of our presenters identified as female. This is up from 29% in 2019.
Team Submitters
In 2021 only 30% of our team submitters identified as female
Individual Submitters
In 2021 only 17% of our individual submitters identified as female
Team Submission Guidelines
Team Submissions
Team presentations provide an opportunity for a cohesive set of talks to be presented together within a single session. Team presentations also include dedicated time for in-depth discussion with the audience and presenters, facilitated by a designated discussant. Traditionally, Team presentations make up the majority of the NCM program and historically have had a significantly higher acceptance rate than Individual submissions.
Successful Team presentations typically include talks covering a common theme from a diverse range of scientific perspectives (e.g. species, behavior of study and/or experimental approach). Submissions for Team presentations should also ensure that the composition of speakers is appropriately diverse. Submissions comprised exclusively of male speakers will not be accepted.
Team Submission Guidelines
- Ensure your NCM membership is in good standing
- Prepare an abstract title (max 225 character limit) for the team submission.
- Decide on your Presentation Format (see list below) and prepare your submission based on its respective requirements.
- Prepare to enter the contact name, affiliation/institution name and email address for each of the abstract team members. Please note, all team members must be NCM members in good standing at the time of the conference.
- Prepare a justification of why your session is relevant and important to NCM attendees (max 1300 character limit – approximately 200 words)
- Prepare a statement of how the composition of the proposed session reflects the diversity of the field (e.g., gender, geographic location, underrepresented minorities, career stage).
- Please note: Prepare a title and an abstract for each speaker in the session (max 1800 character limit – approximately 300 words), and indicate the speaker’s name in the abstract title box for their talk. This information will be used in the review process only.
- Identify a Discussant who will introduce the session and lead the discussion period. Note that the Discussant should not present their own research. The Discussant’s role is to introduce the panel and speakers (and optionally, provide some introductory background and motivating questions) and facilitate a general discussion at the end of the session.
- If you are having difficulty identifying a possible Discussant, the Program Chair can help identify a suitable individual after the program is decided.
- Identify if the submission has any trainees interested in being considered for a scholarship
- Prepare the abstract (max 3000 character limit – approximately 500 words) for the overall session. Please note, this will be published in the conference program.
- Submit all the required information via NCM’s online abstract management system. Please note, when submitting the abstract cut and paste it from a text editor (ie. notepad, wordpad) to ensure it does not include underlying formatting that may cause errors.
- All NCM members are limited to presenting 1 (one) oral presentation (either team or individual), regardless of how many proposals have been submitted. This does not apply to the Discussant role.
Team Presentation Expectations
- The most important part of the team sessions at NCM is to provide a forum for active discussion of important issues in motor control. Therefore, sufficient time must be devoted to general discussion and audience participation.
- Each team presentation should include a Discussant who will introduce the session and promote general discussion. The Discussant should not present their own research and should ideally be independent from the other speakers.
- Panel members should meet in advance of the session to coordinate their presentations and plan potential points for discussion.
- To ensure a rapid and efficient transition between presenters, session leaders are to consolidate all presentations for the session onto a single PC or memory stick.
- A NCM Board member will serve as the timekeeper for each session.
Scholarship applications for Team participants
If the team contains a graduate student or post-doctoral fellow trainee, they may be eligible for a scholarship. Please visit the Scholarships page for more information and note the names of any trainees in the submission form.
Team Presentations Formats
Team presentations can be submitted based on one of the following presentation formats:
Panel
The panel format is NCM’s traditional session format. This session is 2 hours in duration (with at least 20 minutes devoted to group discussion), and should provide broad appeal to the community. Background, motivation and didactic elements by way of introduction are important in order to engage our various NCM sub-communities.
Guidelines
Maximum of 4 speakers plus a Discussant per panel.
Total panel length is 120 minutes. The session should include:
- 5 minute introduction by the Discussant, introducing the topic and speakers
- 90 minutes of talks (approximately 15 minutes per presentation with approximately 5 minutes of discussion for each presentation)
- A minimum of 20 minutes of general discussion time to include all panelists, led by the Discussant and including questions from the audience.
- Any substantial deviations from this format should be explained in detail in the submission.
- Panel members are expected to meet all together before the session to coordinate their presentations and plan potential points for discussion.
Perspectives
Perspective sessions are 1 hour 15 minutes in duration, and include several different styles. Speakers will contribute their perspective on a modern challenge, including a review of the topic at hand, controversies, outlook, and speculation. Perspective styles include:
- Short Panel – emphasizing emerging areas or technologies, as well as topics novel to NCM.
- Clinical-science Interchange – synergy in the understanding of a disease (or class of diseases) from both vantages (e.g. resembling a clinical patho-physiology conference). What can we (have we) learned from clinical sources and from scientific inquiry? How has this confluence advanced our understanding, guided directions, or aided treatment?
- Controversies (or Collegiate Debates) – different perspectives and interpretations, each based upon supporting evidence. Is there a path toward reconciliation, and with what required elements or experiments?
- Historical Overview – glorious moments, breakthroughs, conflicts, or paths towards enlightenment.
Guidelines
Ideally includes 2 or 3 presenters. Session schedules should consider:
- 5 minutes (total) of introductions, motivation and relation between presentations.
- 60 minutes of talks max.
- At least 10 minutes of discussion with audience participation to close the session. In your abstract submission please indicate what the main discussion points will be during the panel discussion. This will help prepare the audience to be actively involved in the main discussion.
Tutorial
Guidelines
These are didactic sessions of 1 hour and 15 minutes duration, with 2 to 3 speakers addressing a specific method or approach that may be of broad applicability or interest. Examples might include emerging technologies (e.g. novel neuro-imaging approaches, multi-array recording), or novel behavioral approaches (e.g. large datasets, markerless tracking). These sessions may occur outside of the traditional meeting schedule.
The deadline for submitting a Team presentation was December 2, 2024
Important note: NCM has transitioned to a new submission software system. If you have attended NCM or been an active member in the past, it is likely your basic details have been added to the new system. If you have renewed your membership for this year, or attended/submitted to the meeting last year, the username and password is the same. If you have not renewed your membership since 2023, please click on the link below and follow the prompt to reset your password. If you receive a password reset email, you can go ahead and login using your new password. If you are not in the new system, please create an account before submitting.
If you have difficulties with access, please contact us at
It is recommended that submitters do not wait until the last day to submit and that submitters ensure they have access in advance.
Individual Oral Guidelines
Individual Oral Sessions
Individual oral sessions are made up of contributed individual talks. These talks are curated into sessions of similar presentation themes and are spread throughout the conference dates. Individual oral presentations provide an opportunity for a researcher to present to the full meeting and receive feedback on their specific research.
Individual (Oral) Guidelines
- IMPORTANT: It is possible for a person to submit both as a member of a team panel and individual oral presentation; however, no person can speak in more than one session each year. Thus, if an individual oral submitter is part of an accepted team oral, their individual submission will be given the opportunity to present as a poster only.
- Ensure your NCM membership is in good standing
- Select a Presentation Theme that most closely describes your oral presentation (see list below).
- Prepare to enter your contact name, affiliation/institution name and email address.
- Prepare an abstract title (max 225 character limit).
- Enter three (3) highlights of the submission (max 225 characters per highlight)
- Include a justification statement on why the presentation is relevant to NCM or would be interesting to have as part of the program (max 1300 characters)
- Prepare the abstract (max 3000 character limit – approximately 500 words).
- Submit the abstract via NCM’s online abstract management system. Please note, when submitting the abstract cut and paste it from a text editor (ie. notepad, wordpad) to ensure it does not include underlying formatting that may cause errors
- Optional: If you would like to be considered for a Scholarship, please indicate your interest in the submission form
- All NCM members are limited to presenting 1 (one) oral presentation (team or individual), regardless of how many proposals have been submitted. This does not apply to the Discussant role for Team presentations.
Individual Presentation Themes
Individual Presentations are invited in the following subject areas (themes):
*Control of Eye and Head Movement
*Posture and Gait
*Fundamentals of Motor Control
*Integrative Control of Movement
*Disorders of Motor Control
*Adaption and Plasticity in Motor Control
*Theoretical and Computational Motor Control
The deadline for submitting an Individual oral presentation was December 2, 2024
Important note: NCM has transitioned to a new submission software system. If you have attended NCM or been an active member in the past, it is likely your basic details have been added to the new system. If you have renewed your membership for this year, or attended/submitted to the meeting last year, the username and password is the same. If you have not renewed your membership since 2023, please click on the link below and follow the prompt to reset your password. If you receive a password reset email, you can go ahead and login using your new password. If you are not in the new system, please create an account before submitting.
If you have difficulties with access, please contact us at
It is recommended that submitters do not wait until the last day to submit and that submitters ensure they have access in advance.
Individual Poster Guidelines
Poster Sessions
Poster sessions provide a venue for presenting new findings and allow for in-depth discussion. Posters will be presented during dedicated Poster Sessions, during which poster presenters are expected to be present. In addition, posters will be on display throughout the day for ad-hoc viewing and discussion.
As well as Standard Posters (an individual poster submitted on behalf of one or more poster authors) we also offer the possibility of Poster Clusters, which provide a means for a set of posters covering a coherent topic of interest to be submitted side-by-side within the same Poster Session.
The Cluster Leader should indicate at submission a cluster title, along with a list of presenting authors and titles for each of the posters within the cluster. Each presenting author should submit their poster as noted above, indicating the cluster leader’s name in the appropriate position in the submission form. The Cluster Leader’s role is to coordinate the cluster and its poster presentations. Consider a common poster style and include the cluster title at the top of each poster.
Individual Poster Submission Guidelines
- Ensure your NCM membership is in good standing
- Select a Presentation Theme that most closely describes your presentation (see list below)
- Prepare to enter your contact name, affiliation/institution name and email address
- Prepare an abstract title (max 225, incl. spaces, character limit)
- Enter three (3) highlights of the submission (max 100 characters per highlight)
- Include a justification statement on why the presentation is relevant to NCM or would be interesting to have as part of the program (max 1300 characters)
- Prepare the abstract (max 3000 character limit, incl. spaces – approximately 500 words)
- Submit the abstract via NCM’s online abstract management system. Please note, when submitting the abstract cut and paste it from a text editor (ie. notepad, wordpad) to ensure it does not include underlying formatting that may cause errors
- Note: If you would like to be considered for a Scholarship, you must submit an oral submission, not a poster submission by the Scholarship deadline of December 2, 2024 and indicate in the submission form your interest in being considered. Should the oral submission be accepted as a poster, the scholarship application will still be considered. Applications for posters only will not be considered.
Please note: A NO PHOTOGRAPHY policy will be implemented in the poster area this year
Individual Poster Presentation Themes
Individual Presentations are invited in the following subject areas (themes):
*Control of Eye and Head Movement
*Posture and Gait
*Fundamentals of Motor Control
*Integrative Control of Movement
*Disorders of Motor Control
*Adaption and Plasticity in Motor Control
*Theoretical and Computational Motor Control
The deadline for submitting a poster presentation is February 17, 2025
Important note: NCM has transitioned to a new submission software system. If you have attended NCM or been an active member in the past, it is likely your basic details have been added to the new system. If you have renewed your membership for this year, or attended/submitted to the meeting last year, the username and password is the same. If you have not renewed your membership since 2023, please click on the link below and follow the prompt to reset your password. If you receive a password reset email, you can go ahead and login using your new password. If you are not in the new system, please create an account before submitting.
If you have difficulties with access, please contact us at
It is recommended that submitters do not wait until the last day to submit and that submitters ensure they have access in advance.