Auckland Bioengineering Institute, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, Kings College London, UK.
Placenta. 2021 Sep 1;112:111-122. doi: 10.1016/j.placenta.2021.07.290. Epub 2021 Jul 23.
Placental structures at the nano-, micro-, and macro scale each play important roles in contributing to its function. As such, quantifying the dynamic way in which placental structure evolves during pregnancy is critical to both clinical diagnosis of pregnancy disorders, and mechanistic understanding of their pathophysiology. Imaging the placenta, both exvivo and invivo, can provide a wealth of structural and/or functional information. This review outlines how imaging across modalities and spatial scales can ultimately come together to improve our understanding of normal and pathological pregnancies. We discuss how imaging technologies are evolving to provide new insights into placental physiology across disciplines, and how advanced computational algorithms can be used alongside state-of-the-art imaging to obtain a holistic view of placental structure and its associated functions to improve our understanding of placental function in health and disease.
胎盘的纳米、微米和宏观结构在发挥其功能方面都起着重要作用。因此，定量描述胎盘结构在妊娠期间的动态演变对于妊娠疾病的临床诊断和对其病理生理学的机制理解都至关重要。对胎盘进行成像，无论是离体还是在体，都可以提供丰富的结构和/或功能信息。本综述概述了如何通过跨模态和空间尺度的成像最终结合起来，以提高对正常和病理性妊娠的理解。我们讨论了成像技术如何发展，为跨学科领域提供对胎盘生理学的新见解，以及如何结合先进的计算算法和最先进的成像技术，获得胎盘结构及其相关功能的整体视图，以提高我们对健康和疾病中胎盘功能的理解。
