Five days of interdisciplinary rehabilitation research in the nation's capital, closing on Friday, October 16 with the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Implanted Brain-Computer Interface Collaborative Community (iBCI-CC), hosted in collaboration with ACRM. The North American Spinal Cord Injury Consortium is a charter member.
Host and Featured Meeting
The American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) has been convening rehabilitation researchers and clinicians since 1923, and 2026 marks its 103rd Annual Fall Conference and EXPO. Spinal cord injury (SCI) is not a side track at this meeting. ACRM houses a Spinal Cord Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (SCI-ISIG), whose work is carried out through task forces on functional electrical stimulation and technology, physical function and wellness, complications that develop over time and aging, wheeled mobility, and non-traumatic spinal cord injury.
What makes 2026 different is the final day. Friday, October 16 belongs to the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Implanted Brain-Computer Interface Collaborative Community (iBCI-CC), held in the same hotel in collaboration with ACRM. An implanted brain-computer interface (iBCI) reads signals from the brain and turns them into control of a computer, a communication device, or a limb. The iBCI-CC brings the people who build these systems together with the regulators who review them, the clinicians who would prescribe them, the payors who would cover them, and the people who would use them. The North American Spinal Cord Injury Consortium (NASCIC) is a charter member.
For people living with SCI, that Friday is where the decisions that matter later get made early. Whether an implanted device reaches the people who want one depends on questions that sound procedural and are not: what a clinical trial is allowed to count as success, which payor pathway a device falls under, who owns the neural data a device produces, and whether anyone asked users what they wanted the device to do before it was designed. Those four questions are the agenda.
The first half of Friday, October 16 is open to anyone who registers, from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern Time. Registration is free, includes a light breakfast and lunch, and does not require iBCI-CC membership. A Zoom link is provided for the Public Meeting, so people who cannot travel to Washington can still attend that portion.
Heather Dean, PhD and Julia Slocomb, PhD present on iBCI regulatory science within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), followed by a panel with Fraser Bocell, PhD, David McMullen, MD, Vivek Pinto, PhD, MBA, and Cristin Welle, PhD, moderated by Joe Lennerz, MD, PhD. A community question and answer session follows.
Martha J. Morrell, MD, FAAN closes the Public Meeting from 11:50 AM to 12:30 PM. Dr. Morrell is Chief Medical Officer at NeuroPace and a Clinical Professor of Neurology at Stanford University, which puts a physician with implanted neurostimulation experience in front of the room.
The afternoon, from 1:20 PM to 5:00 PM, is an iBCI-CC Members Workshop. Three high priority breakouts cover clinical outcome assessments, payor pathways beyond Medicare, and neural data use and privacy. Seven workgroup breakouts follow, then a group summary of what comes next.
The days before Friday are ACRM's own program of symposia, plenary sessions, award lectures, scientific posters, community group meetings, and the REHAB EXPO exhibit hall. ACRM had not posted its 2026 session grid or its 2026 rates when this listing was prepared, so check ACRM's conference site for the program as it is released.
The iBCI-CC has a limited number of travel scholarships for qualifying representatives of patient advocacy organizations, and it encourages people with lived experience to apply. The scholarship application is a separate form from the meeting registration, linked on the iBCI-CC event page.
In-person attendees may arrive at 8:30 AM for a light breakfast. Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD opens at 9:00 AM, and updates from the organizers follow at 9:05 AM from Dr. Hochberg, Jen French, MBA, and Jessica Kelemen, MBA. Virtual attendees join at 9:00 AM.
Eight minutes each from the co-leads of the iBCI-CC workgroups, covering user priorities and iBCI use cases, clinical study endpoints, clinical practice guidelines, payor interactions and device categorization, modular components and interoperability standards, public messaging and education, and ethics with neural data privacy and security.
Heather Dean, PhD and Julia Slocomb, PhD present on iBCI regulatory science within the FDA, then a 30 minute regulatory science panel with Fraser Bocell, PhD, David McMullen, MD, Vivek Pinto, PhD, MBA, and Cristin Welle, PhD, moderated by Joe Lennerz, MD, PhD.
Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD leads a 30 minute question and answer session, which is the window where community questions reach the regulators and device developers in the room. Martha J. Morrell, MD, FAAN gives the keynote address from 11:50 AM to 12:30 PM. Lunch follows at 12:30 PM.
Breakout instructions at 1:20 PM, high priority breakouts from 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM, workgroup breakouts from 3:15 PM to 4:00 PM, and a group summary of what comes next from 4:15 PM to 4:55 PM. The meeting closes at 5:00 PM, and a networking event is scheduled from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM. Breakout sessions have no virtual component, though virtual attendees are welcome for the wrap-up.
Past President, North American Spinal Cord Injury Consortium
The iBCI-CC agenda names Jen French among the organizers giving community updates in the first twenty minutes of the Public Meeting, alongside Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD and Jessica Kelemen, MBA.
French is a past president of NASCIC. Her place on the organizing side of an implanted brain-computer interface community matters for the same reason NASCIC holds a charter membership in it. Decisions about endpoints, coverage, and neural data are being made in rooms that have not always had someone with lived experience in them, and this one does.
The iBCI-CC had not published session abstracts for the organizer updates when this listing was prepared. The full agenda is posted on the iBCI-CC event page and is being finalized as the meeting approaches.
View the Full AgendaThese are two separate registrations. The iBCI-CC Annual Meeting is free and closes September 18. The ACRM conference is a paid registration through ACRM's own portal.
1919 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20009
Both meetings are in the same hotel, so the iBCI-CC Friday does not require a separate trip across the city. ACRM describes the property as close to Dupont Circle and the National Mall.
One room block covers both events. Rooms are held at the Washington Hilton at a conference rate of $289 for October 12 to 16, and the block is shared by the iBCI-CC Annual Meeting and the ACRM Annual Fall Conference and EXPO. A one night deposit is required and is refundable, with a cancellation policy of 72 hours before arrival.
Note: The block closes September 10, 2026, or earlier if it sells out. Booking by phone is available at 1.202.483.3000 by asking for the 103rd ACRM Annual Fall Conference and EXPO room block. Check-in is 4:00 PM and check-out is 11:00 AM.
The Washington Hilton sits at 1919 Connecticut Avenue NW in northwest Washington. On-site daily self-parking is $58 including tax, with in and out privileges, in an unsecured underground garage. For attendees who need help with the cost of the trip, the iBCI-CC travel scholarships are open to qualifying representatives of patient advocacy organizations, and people with lived experience are encouraged to apply.
The regulatory science block on October 16 asks how the FDA evaluates implanted brain-computer interfaces. NASCIC is working the same question from the community side. On September 29, 2026, NASCIC and a coalition of national SCI organizations hold the first Externally-Led Patient-Focused Drug Development (PFDD) meeting for spinal cord injury, co-hosted by Ian Burkhart, where what people with SCI say becomes a Voice of the Patient report the FDA can use.
Read About SCI PFDDThe 103rd ACRM Annual Fall Conference and EXPO is October 12 to 16 at the Washington Hilton. The 3rd iBCI-CC Annual Meeting closes the week on Friday, October 16, free to attend, with registration open through September 18.
Accessibility: The iBCI-CC Public Meeting has a Zoom option for people who cannot travel, and iBCI-CC posts a spreadsheet registration form for anyone whose workplace firewall blocks the online form. Accessible guest room requests go through the Washington Hilton at 1.202.483.3000. ACRM had not posted a 2026 accessibility contact when this listing was prepared. ACRM member services can be reached at 1.703.435.5335.
