Last week we talked about the technology, originally used to look at inflammation in the brain and heart, applied to the placenta. This amazing form of MRI, which is both non invasive and safe, allows for real time information about inflammation in a pregnancy in progress. Today I'll finish my conversation with Dr. Yong Wang about what he and his team found in the study that used this technology in pregnant patients.

The placenta is critically important for the success of a pregnancy, being the physical connection between the mother's body and the developing fetus. Defects in the placenta tend to have significant consequences for the pregnancy and the fetus, including things like preeclampsia, preterm birth and maybe also congenital heart defects. So understanding what's going on in the placenta before these conditions develop has enormous potential to drastically improve the health of the fetus and future child. But figuring out that a problem is a foot before physical signs of that problem show themselves in the form of preterm contractions or high blood pressure in pregnancy has been a challenge. Today I'm talking to a researcher I'm describing as the Magellen of pregnancy, an explorer of sorts showing us new details of changes in inflammation during pregnancies in progress that we haven't been able to see before by adapting a specific type of MRI to image inflammation in the placenta in real time.

To read the paper, you can find it here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11698687/

This week we will focus on what in G-ds good name is going on in the uterus during your cycle. I don’t think I’m going too far out on a ledge to say that most of us consider our period an inconvenience at best, but when you hear some of the details of what’s actually going on, you may look at it differently. what’s happening in your uterus each month reads like science fiction–cells following hormone signals with a cult like fervency, multiplying like crazy and transforming into other cell types, building blood vessels on the fly and awakening glands to produce uterine milk. Not only are these cells responding to chemistry, to hormones, but they are also responding to the mechanical signals around them– they feel and respond to the physical pressure of the other cells around them–and it turns out these magic tricks, which, when they are working, can help your body to produce a new human life, and when they aren’t working may significantly contribute to; the risk of miscarriage, the risk of pregnancy complications (endometrial spectrum disorder) and, but also, at the same time, these cells may provide serious prospects for regenerative medicine as a “cure” for some sources of infertility.

Here's a link to the episode on implantation: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-placentas-origin-story/id1779600854?i=1000701864045