Fetoplacental Molecular and Metabolic Magnetic Resonance Imaging

怀孕期间的核磁共振成像（MRI）为我们了解胎儿（未出生的婴儿）和胎盘（负责将氧气和营养物质从母亲输送给胎儿的器官）的正常和异常发育提供了巨大的机会。核磁共振成像在怀孕期间使用是安全的，与超声波不同的是，它不仅可以产生解剖结构的图像，还可以产生组织功能和化学成分的图像。利用核磁共振成像技术进行孕期功能成像的机会已经大大扩大，最近我的实验室展示了胎儿脂肪含量的核磁共振成像以及胎盘和胎儿的营养和能量使用。这些新的核磁共振成像方法显示出极大的希望，可以改善医生对诸如先兆子痫和宫内生长受限（IUGR）等重要疾病的信息。在这些方法能够常规用于孕妇之前，必须克服许多技术障碍。这些障碍包括需要纠正MRI期间胎儿运动的影响，缺乏适合研究胎儿脂肪发育的MRI方法，以及需要提高我们拍摄胎儿和胎盘组织功能图像的能力。本研究将从以下几个方面解决这些问题：为怀孕期间的MRI创造运动补偿方法：MRI期间的运动是成像不良的最常见原因，是孕妇和胎儿成像的一个特别大的问题。胎动不可避免：不能要求胎儿停止胎动，不能使用麻醉，因为对胎儿风险太大。用现有的方法纠正胎儿的运动是具有挑战性的：它是随机的，快速的，并且可以非常大，所以现有的运动纠正方法对成年人无效。我们将创造新的运动矫正方法，旨在在怀孕期间MRI的独特情况下工作。2. 开发改进的MRI技术来成像胎儿和胎盘的营养和能量使用：我的实验室率先研究了胎儿和胎盘营养和能量使用的MRI调查。我们将继续完善这项工作，创造出更灵敏的方法，这样就可以检测到未出生婴儿和胎盘在能量使用方面更微妙的问题。3. 开发监测胎儿和胎盘健康的新方法：能量和营养的使用只是胎儿和胎盘健康的一个方面。胎盘的酸度水平是未出生婴儿健康的一个关键指标，因此我们将开发新的方法来测量胎盘中酸的产生，最终目标是提供更多的方法来尽早发现异常妊娠。

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) during pregnancy offers tremendous opportunities for advancing our understanding of the normal and abnormal development of the fetus (unborn baby) and the placenta (the organ responsible for transferring oxygen and nutrients from mother to fetus). MRI is safe to use in pregnancy and, unlike ultrasound, it can create images not only of anatomical structures, but also of tissue function and chemical content. The opportunities for using MRI techniques for functional imaging in pregnancy have dramatically expanded with recent demonstrations by my lab of MRI of fetal fat content and of nutrient and energy use in the placenta and fetus. These new MRI methods show extraordinary promise for improving the information available to doctors about critically important diseases pregnancy like preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). Numerous technical obstacles must be overcome before these methods can be routinely used pregnant women. These obstacles range from the need to correct the effects of fetal movement during MRI, to the lack of MRI methods suitable for investigating fetal fat development, through the need to improve our ability to take images of tissue function in the fetus and placenta. This research will solve these problems by: 1. Creating motion compensation methods for MRI during pregnancy: Motion during MRI is the most common cause of poor images and is a particularly big problem for imaging the pregnant woman and her fetus. Fetal motion cannot be avoided: the fetus can't be asked to stop moving, and anesthesia cannot be used as it is too risky for the fetus. Fetal motion is challenging to correct with existing methods: it is random, fast and can be very large so existing motion correction methods that work for adults fail. We will create new motion correction methods that are designed to work in the unique situation of MRI during pregnancy. 2. Developing improved MRI techniques to image nutrient and energy use in the fetus and placenta: My laboratory has pioneered research into MRI investigation of fetal and placental nutrient and energy use. We will continue to refine this work to create methods that are even more sensitive so that even more subtle problems in energy use by the unborn baby and placenta can be detected. 3. Developing new methods for monitoring fetal and placental health: Energy and nutrient use is only one aspect of fetal and placental health. The level of acidity of the placenta is a key indicator of the health of the unborn baby so we will develop new methods for measuring the production of acids in the placenta with the eventual goal of providing additional methods of detecting abnormal pregnancies as early as possible.