NEWS: NEXR Invited to Full Grant Application Stage for Spinal Research Clinical Pilot Programme
10th August, 2026
NEXR Foundation has been invited to submit a Full Grant Application to Spinal Research's Neurotechnology Clinical Pilot Study programme, following the successful assessment of its initial Letter of Intent.
The invitation represents an important milestone for NEXR as it moves its closed-loop neurotechnology platform from engineering development towards clinical evaluation in people living with spinal cord injury.
It’s also a particularly encouraging result for the team: this was NEXR's first funding application of any type.
The proposed project will be led by Dr Benjamin Metcalfe of the University of Bath and the Bath Institute for the Augmented Human, bringing together an international multidisciplinary team spanning neuroengineering, spinal cord injury rehabilitation, neuropathic pain, brain-computer interfaces and immersive neurotechnology.
From intention to feedback
The science behind NEXR begins with a relatively simple observation.
Following spinal cord injury, the brain can retain the ability to intend movement even when the body can no longer execute it.
NEXR is developing a non-invasive system designed to detect that intention and respond with precisely synchronised sensory feedback, combining brain and muscle sensing with immersive visual environments, tactile feedback and other sensory signals. The underlying hypothesis is that reconnecting intention with sensory consequence may help restore a more coherent conversation between brain and body.
NEXR's scientific programme is investigating whether this closed-loop approach can promote adaptive neuroplasticity and, importantly, whether it may also influence one of the most difficult consequences of spinal cord injury: neuropathic pain.
That remains a scientific hypothesis rather than an established therapeutic claim. Determining whether the approach can produce meaningful neurophysiological and clinical effects is precisely what NEXR's translational research programme is being designed to test.
A clinical pilot built around people with spinal cord injury
The proposed research programme includes an initial validation stage followed by pilot testing involving people living with spinal cord injury.
The Letter of Intent proposes approximately 8–12 participants with SCI, undertaking immersive, goal-directed activities such as reaching and object manipulation while the research team investigates neural activity, sensorimotor engagement and preliminary signals relating to neuropathic pain.
The evolving clinical protocol places particular emphasis on the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention and on understanding its potential relationship with neuropathic pain.
Current planning envisages a series of immersive sessions in which detected motor intention is coupled with temporally aligned visual, tactile and auditory feedback. Outcomes under consideration include neuropathic pain severity, pain interference, embodiment and participant experience, alongside the practical question of whether a larger clinical study would be justified.
An international collaboration
The proposed study is being developed through a multidisciplinary international collaboration, bringing together specialist expertise across neuroscience, neuroengineering, rehabilitation, neuropathic pain and immersive technology.
Dr Benjamin Metcalfe, University of Bath and the Bath Institute for the Augmented Human, will serve as Principal Investigator and provide overall scientific leadership, including work on neural intent detection and closed-loop system architecture.
NEXR and University College Dublin will contribute to the development and integration of the multisensory platform and its neurophysiological sensing architecture, while the clinical programme draws on specialist neuropathic pain expertise from Professor Eva Widerström-Noga and Dr Roberta Vastano at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.
Around this core sits a wider group contributing specialist technologies and expertise to different parts of the closed loop:
NEXR's Content Team in Sweden is developing the highly immersive virtual environments through which movement intention can be represented as rich, believable sensory experience.
Vincent Mendez and MyoLink in Switzerland are contributing wearable EMG technology, including the MyoLink sleeve, with a particular emphasis on making neuromuscular sensing practical and straightforward to use.
NeuroCONCISE in the UK brings expertise in AI-driven EEG brain-computer interfaces, supporting the external BCI capability required to detect and interpret cortical movement intention.
Professor Doug Weber at Carnegie Mellon University in the USA brings extensive expertise in neural interfaces, sensory feedback and haptics, including next-generation hand-exoskeleton technology through which precisely controlled physical feedback can ultimately be explored.
The submitted application already describes the wider collaboration as spanning brain-computer interfaces, neurorehabilitation engineering, neuropathic pain and multisensory neurotechnology, with Mendez and Weber specifically contributing expertise in neuromuscular sensing, wearable haptics, neural interfaces and sensory feedback.
The proposed UK clinical implementation is centred on Neurokinex Rehabilitation Centres, which would provide clinical sites, participant recruitment and specialist rehabilitation expertise.
Lived experience at the centre
The programme also reflects something fundamental to the way NEXR was created. People with lived experience of spinal cord injury are not intended simply to become participants at the end of the development process. NEXR co-founder Fiona Foley, who lives with quadriplegia following spinal cord injury, contributes directly to the design of intervention activities, while participants in the proposed pilot would provide iterative feedback on usability, accessibility and their experience of the intervention. That feedback will be important in determining how the technology develops and whether it is appropriate to progress towards larger clinical studies.
An important next step
The invitation to submit a Full Grant Application does not mean that funding has been secured.
There is still a competitive assessment process ahead, but progression through the Letter of Intent stage provides an important external validation of the scientific question NEXR and its collaborators are setting out to investigate.
For a programme still at the beginning of its translational journey it’s a significant step. The next phase will bring the collaborating scientific, engineering and clinical teams together to develop the detailed Full Grant Application and clinical study design. NEXR's objective remains deliberately straightforward:
Build the technology. Test the hypothesis. Measure what happens. Follow the evidence.