Abstract

Motivation: Pregnancy complications are often associated with placenta dysfunction, which lacks non-invasive assessment in early pregnancy. Goal(s): Evaluating placental R2* as a non-invasive and quantitative biomarker to identify and monitor pregnancy complications. Approach: We introduce a novel thrombotic and inflammatory placental injury model of rhesus macaques and report mean values, histograms, and spatial distribution of placental R2* based on blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) MR imaging at different gestational ages before and after iron nanoparticle (ferumoxytol) administration. Results: Higher overtime and post-contrast increase in mean values and more heterogeneous spatial patterns of R2* are observed in placentas with induced injury. Impact: A refined nonhuman primate model for thrombosis and inflammation is introduced for investigating placental pathology. Larger R2* increases over time and immediately after ferumoxytol injections suggest the potential for R2* to be an indicator of pathology with or without contrast.