This project focuses on the mathematical modeling of placental structure, function and growth. In particular, we are interested in generating measures and metrics with a natural connection to that structure, function and growth. The idea, in a nutshell, is to use domain expertise to select geometric features with a direct correlation to relevant physiological factors important to early fetal growth and development.

The motivation for this work includes the facts that lifelong health risks appear to be related to intrauterine stressors. Evidence suggests that the placenta may mediate or mark the stressors that modulate fetal homeostasis and create in utero vulnerabilities with lifelong ramifications.

Models

We are interested in developing the following types of models:

(1a) Models of the growth of the placenta that would account for the observed placental shape variations at delivery.

(1b) Models of uterine receptivity and support functions influencing the growth and function of the placenta.

(2) Solution of the inverse problem of inference of uterine receptivity and support from placental measurements.

(3) Development of a model for the placental branching tree development that permits us to predict shape and structure from a spatio-temporal record of determining physiological inputs.

Measures

We will use the models above to develop geometric measures that focus attention on important features and ignore the non-determining features. More specifically, we want to distill the highly complicated shape of the placenta down to simpler descriptions while not losing those features which are critical in determining fetal health and well being. Geometric analysis, broadly defined, provides us with a very rich and diverse set of tools and insights for probing and characterizing sets, measures and functions. These will be used and generalized or modified to develop the needed simplified descriptions.

Data

The data types include:

(1) Digital photographs of the placental surfaces

(2) Digitized histology preparations of placental slices

(3) Gestational, neonatal and childhood outcomes

The initial data sets are collected from national and international birth cohorts which archived placental images and tissue samples in the course of cohort recruitment.

Concrete Goals

Short Term Goal: development of shape and structure measures which capture physiologically important features and ignore the unimportant. Correlations with immediate newborn status will be studied first. (Time scale: summer 2007)

Long Term Goal: These measure and models will then be used to develop methods for predicting fetal health and development from measurements of the placenta. In addition we are interested in early recognition of childhood and adolescent health risks. (This project is a continuing project that will persist beyond the summer school. The long term goal is consistent with expected 2007-2010 project lifetime.