IXICO (AIM:IXI) presented new neuroimaging research at the 42nd European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine & Biology (ESMRMB) 2026 scientific meeting this week.
The AIM-listed medical imaging software company studied two MRI techniques sensitive to neuromelanin, a pigment linked to neurological disease, in healthy volunteers, comparing magnetisation transfer gradient echo (MT-GRE) against turbo spin echo (TSE) for visualising the substantia nigra, a brain region strongly implicated in Parkinson's disease.
Both techniques successfully visualised the structure, but MT-GRE delivered consistently improved contrast against surrounding tissue, a finding IXICO says will help standardise and improve the reproducibility of neuromelanin-based assessment in future Parkinson's research and trials.
The company also presented a new method for measuring changes in the substantia nigra without first needing to precisely outline the structure, which it says could simplify the measurement process.
"Our work presented at ESMRMB shows that both techniques can visualise the substantia nigra, while MT-GRE provides consistently stronger contrast, and also explores an analysis framework for quantitative assessment," said Robin Wolz, IXICO's Chief Scientific Officer.
The work follows IXICO's announcement in June of a prospective neuromelanin MRI study with the Paris Brain Institute, aimed at optimising acquisition protocols and validating AI-driven analysis as a quantitative Parkinson's disease biomarker.
Further research will assess the techniques' ability to differentiate patient groups and track disease-related changes over time.