Purpose: To investigate, visualize and quantify the physiology of the human placenta in several dimensions - functional, temporal over gestation, and spatial over the whole organ.
Methods: Bespoke MRI techniques, combining a rich diffusion protocol, anatomical data and T2* mapping together with a multi-modal pipeline including motion correction and extracted quantitative features were developed and employed on pregnant women between 22 and 38 weeks gestational age including two pregnancies diagnosed with pre-eclampsia.
Results: A multi-faceted assessment was demonstrated showing trends of increasing lacunarity, and decreasing T2* and diffusivity over gestation.
Conclusions: The obtained multi-modal acquisition and quantification shows promising opportunities for studying evolution, adaptation and compensation processes.
Keywords: development; diffusion MRI; placenta; postprocessing; pregnancy complications; relaxometry.
© 2018 The Authors Magnetic Resonance in Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.