Ecological determinants of luteal reproductive function

流产是妇女生殖生活中经常发生的一种破坏性事件，人们对流产的原因了解甚少。已知的是，怀孕早期的黄体期(受孕和着床期)不仅对生殖成功至关重要，而且也是女性感受到压力时最先受到抑制的阶段。这项研究利用人类学方法，将女性生殖功能和黄体期生物学在女性之间的变异范围置于生态和发育背景下，重点关注处于适度能量和免疫功能压力下的人类群体。这些结果将阐明与人类黄体期变异有关的原因及其对生殖的影响，这些因素目前尚不清楚。该项目将通过研究子宫内膜，胚胎植入的位置，促进更多的了解，从而对黄体期和流产的研究非常重要。通过关注波兰农村的非西方人口，获得了一种比较的视角，这可以促进对为什么美国女性比其他国家的人更容易经历生殖障碍的理解。这种方法将子宫内膜置于更广泛的压力源的背景下，这些压力源是生活在可能抑制子宫内膜支持怀孕能力的可变生态压力源下生活的。这也是有史以来第一次对女性进行研究--S在整个月经周期内的系统生殖功能，因为它包括每天采集尿液以分析生殖激素和应激生物标志物，以及对这一人群中的女性进行子宫内膜超声检查、人口统计数据和身体测量。因此，这项人群水平的研究将描述在一个充满能量和免疫压力的农业环境中卵巢和子宫内膜之间的关系；研究这些应激源和黄体功能之间的关系；并提供一个纵向视角，探索出生体重和首次月经年龄等发育里程碑如何影响黄体功能。一旦分析了黄体卵巢和子宫内膜的基线和正常变化，未来的研究将能够更充分地阐明应激源如何影响母体环境并导致流产。这项工作促进了对人类生物学的理解，远远超出了临床研究的范围，但在开发更安全、更有效的个性化激素避孕药方面也有临床应用，这种避孕药在剂量结构中考虑了年龄、儿童状况和生活方式。它还将通过为未被充分代表的学生提供有组织的指导计划来促进科学发现，将研究纳入入门和高级课程，并通过利用PI作为科学美国人获奖博客作者的地位向公众广泛传播这种人类学观点和研究成果。

The causes of miscarriage, an often devastating event that occurs not infrequently in women's reproductive lives, are poorly understood. What is known is that the luteal phase of early pregnancy (the time of conception and implantation) is not only critically important to successful reproduction, it also is the phase which is the first to be suppressed when women experience stress. This research utilizes an anthropological approach to place female reproductive functioning and the spectrum of variation in luteal phase biology between women into an ecological and developmental context, focusing on a human population under moderate levels of energetic and immune function stress. The results will illuminate the causal factors relating to human variation in the luteal phase and the resulting impacts on reproduction, which are poorly understood.This project will promote greater understanding by studying the endometrium, the site of embryo implantation and thus important to luteal phase and miscarriage research. By focusing on a non-western population in rural Poland, a comparative perspective is gained which can promote understanding of why American women experience reproductive disorders more than people in other countries. The approach places the endometrium in a broader context of the stressors experienced by women living under variable ecological stressors that may suppress its ability to support pregnancy. It also is the first-ever study of women?s systemic reproductive functioning over an entire menstrual cycle, since it includes daily urine collection for analysis of reproductive hormones and stress biomarkers, alongside ultrasound of the endometrium, demographic data, and bodily measurements of the women in this population. This population-level research therefore will characterize the relationship between the ovaries and endometrium in an energetically and immunologically stressed, agricultural environment; study the associations between these stressors and luteal function; and provide a longitudinal perspective which can explore how developmental milestones like birth weight and age at first menstruation influence luteal function. Once baseline, normal variation in the luteal ovaries and endometrium is analyzed, future studies will be able to more fully illuminate how stressors could affect the maternal environment and drive miscarriage. The work promotes understanding of human biology far beyond what can be gained in a clinical study, yet has clinical applications for the development of safer and more effective personalized hormonal contraceptives that consider age, childhood conditions and lifestyle in their dosing structure. It also will advance scientific discovery via a structured mentoring program for underrepresented students, incorporation of the research into introductory and advanced coursework, and by widely disseminating this anthropological perspective and research results to the general public using the PI's standing as an award-winning blogger at Scientific American.