Fetoplacental Molecular and Metabolic Magnetic Resonance Imaging

怀孕期间的磁共振成像（MRI）为我们进一步了解胎儿（未出生的婴儿）和胎盘（负责将氧气和营养物质从母亲转移到胎儿的器官）的正常和异常发育提供了巨大的机会。MRI在怀孕期间使用是安全的，与超声不同，它不仅可以创建解剖结构的图像，还可以创建组织功能和化学成分的图像。最近，我的实验室演示了胎儿脂肪含量以及胎盘和胎儿的营养和能量使用，使用MRI技术进行妊娠功能成像的机会大大增加。 这些新的MRI方法显示出非凡的前景，可以改善医生对妊娠中至关重要的疾病（如先兆子痫和宫内生长受限（IUGR））的信息。在孕妇常规使用这些方法之前，必须克服许多技术障碍。这些障碍包括需要在MRI期间纠正胎动的影响，缺乏适合调查胎儿脂肪发育的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：1.为怀孕期间的MRI创建运动补偿方法：MRI期间的运动是图像质量差的最常见原因，对于孕妇及其胎儿的成像来说是一个特别大的问题。胎动是无法避免的：不能要求胎儿停止运动，不能使用麻醉，因为它对胎儿来说太危险了。利用现有方法校正胎儿运动是具有挑战性的：它是随机的、快速的并且可能非常大，因此适用于成人的现有运动校正方法失败。我们将创建新的运动校正方法，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，以成像胎儿和胎盘的营养和能量使用：我的实验室开创了胎儿和胎盘营养和能量使用的MRI研究。我们将继续完善这项工作，以创造更敏感的方法，以便能够检测到未出生婴儿和胎盘在能量使用方面的更微妙问题。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，最终目标是提供尽早检测异常妊娠的其他方法。

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.