BRIDGING COTYLEDON PATHOLOGY AND PERFUSION IN HEALTHY PRIMATE PREGNANCY.

Area of Science:

• Reproductive Biology
• Medical Imaging
• Pathology

Background:

• Placental pathology is common in both healthy and diseased pregnancies.
• Quantitative methods to assess placental pathologies and their link to maternal hemodynamics in primates are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify placental blood volume, flow, and perfusion in rhesus macaques across gestation using MRI.
• To characterize common placental pathologies and their relationship to maternal hemodynamics at the cotyledon level.

Main Methods:

• MRI imaging of placentae from seven rhesus macaques across mid-to late-gestation.
• Digital analysis of hematoxylin/eosin-stained placental cotyledons to identify and quantify pathologies.
• Correlation of MRI perfusion metrics with specific pathologies using Spearman correlation and dimensionality reduction.

Main Results:

• Increased stromal mineralization was associated with low blood perfusion and decreased fetal weight throughout gestation.
• Maternal vascular malperfusion-associated pathologies were the largest contributors to variance in the dataset.
• Pathologies typically linked to healthy placental function showed low blood flow and volume without compensatory changes.

Conclusions:

• Established a quantitative framework linking placental pathology to maternal blood perfusion in primate pregnancy.
• Demonstrated that stromal mineralization impacts placental hemodynamics and fetal growth.
• Highlighted the utility of integrating pathologist expertise with computational approaches for placental analysis.