Abstract #1742

Measuring the effects of placental contractions on placental blood flow using a combined T2* and 1D quantitative flow sequence

George Hutchinson¹, Amy Turnbull¹, Ruizhe Li², Louise Dewick³, Chris Bradley¹, Neele Dellschaft¹, Kate Walker³, Nia Jones³, Xin Chen², and Penny Gowland¹

¹Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, ²School of Computer Science, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, ³School of Medicine, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Synopsis

Keywords: Placenta, Placenta

Motivation: Placental contractions have been observed previously in utero using MRI, where the placenta appears to squeeze tightly, but their purpose is poorly understood.

Goal(s): The goal of this work was to use a dynamic T2* and quantitative flow sequence to investigate the effects of placental contractions on blood flow within the organ.

Approach: We scanned 9 women who had a placental contraction during acquisition, which we used quantitative flow maps to investigate how the velocity changed.

Results: During a contraction the blood flow within the placenta slows, as the placenta relaxes the blood velocity increases, implying they are related to blood flow.

Impact: This work is the first analysis of how a placental contraction affects the blood flow within the placenta, and indicates that they do alter the flow of blood within the organ.

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