Placental blood-flow velocity quantification from diffusion MRI
Motivation: Estimating blood flow velocity in capillary beds lacking voxel-scale coherence is challenging with current imaging techniques. Altered blood flow in small-scale placental capillaries is a key factor affecting the health of pregnant women and their fetuses. Goal(s): Estimating fetoplacental blood velocity directly from diffusion MRI. Approach: We perform Monte Carlo dMRI simulations with perfusion in synthetic capillary systems, training a machine learning algorithm to recover parameters like flow velocity from generated signals. This trained algorithm then estimates these parameters from in-vivo diffusion MRI of human placentas. Results: Our approach estimates placental blood velocities and diffusivities, yielding values comparable with published data. Impact: Our approach estimates blood velocity from existing diffusion MRI data, reflecting placental blood flow conditions and potentially helping to diagnose diseases like pre-eclampsia. This approach could also be applied to organs where blood velocity is clinically significant.
Authors
- Rebecca J. Shipley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2818-6228)
- Serena J. Counsell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8033-5673)
- Daniel C. Alexander (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2439-350X)
- Leevi Kerkelä (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9446-4305)
- Daniel Cromb (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9814-8841)
- Elizabeth Powell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1059-1188)
- Paddy J. Slator (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6967-989X)
- Jana Hutter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3476-3500)
- Marco Palombo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4892-7967)
- Kelly Payette (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7041-0150)
- Dinis Reis Oliveira (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8948-6884)
- Joseph V. Hajnal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2690-5495)
- Lisa Story (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9328-9592)
- Christopher S. Parker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1879-0357)
- Z. Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9761-573X)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Proceedings on CD-ROM - International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Scientific Meeting and Exhibition/Proceedings of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Scientific Meeting and Exhibition
- Published
- 2025-09-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.58530/2025/0166
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00