Comprehensive and individualised placental MRI for assessing placental development in health and disease

Motivation: The placenta is crucial for fetal growth. MRI enables in-utero assessment of typical and atypical placental development, helping to understand mechanisms behind pathological conditions. Goal(s): To combine placental diffusion-relaxation MRI with normative modelling to perform comprehensive individualised analyses of normal and altered placental development. Approach: Combined T2*-diffusion placental data was acquired in 182 pregnant participants between 15-40 weeks gestation. Normative modelling was used to quantify deviations from normal in measures of placental function and structure in heterogeneous clinical cohorts. Results: Significant differences in placental T2*, ADC and texture were seen between cases and controls, with altered placental development seen in all clinical cohorts. Impact: Combining placental MRI data in large cohorts of healthy pregnant participants with normative modelling allows individualised assessments of placental structure and function to be performed, with the potential to help assess and understand when placental development is altered.