Menu
MapConnectionsTopicsBulgariaThe Night (K-TRIO)Marie Skłodowska-CurieFor studentsFor teachersMethodologySurprise me
HEIndividual fellowship2023–2025

MEASURE · Models of the maternal and fetal cardiovascular systems coupling via uterus and placenta

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2023-09-01 → 2025-08-31
EU contribution
€203,464
Participants
2
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Models of the maternal and fetal cardiovascular systems coupling via uterus and placenta

Pregnancy is a delicate and complex phase in a woman’s life, where the health of both mother and baby must be carefully monitored. Complications such as preeclampsia, growth restrictions, or congenital heart disease can affect up to 1 in 10 pregnancies, and they remain a leading cause of maternal and perinatal illness and death worldwide. Detecting these problems early is particularly challenging, since many of the tools currently used in clinics only identify complications when the condition has already progressed, reducing the chances of timely intervention. The MEASURE project set out to address this challenge by exploring how the mother’s and fetus’s hearts and circulatory systems interact during pregnancy. These interactions, known as maternal–fetal coupling, reflect the continuous exchange and influences between mother and child. The main goal was to investigate whether subtle changes in these coupling mechanisms could provide early warning signs of pregnancy complications. To achieve this, the project developed novel methods to extract and analyze electrical signals from the abdomen of pregnant women and used them to build computational models of maternal–fetal interactions. The project aimed to generate new scientific knowledge while also laying the groundwork for future clinical and industrial applications.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Complications occur in 5-10% of pregnancies, resulting every year in 2.6 million stillbirths and 303,000 maternal deaths. There is established evidence that complications and stillbirth are associated with abnormal development/adaptation of the cardiovascular system (CVS) during pregnancy. However, the literature lacks a holistic approach and only a few limited aspects have been investigated. Therefore, MEASURE aims at pursuing a holistic investigation of the CVS and the coupling between its subsystems (fetal and maternal CVS), mediated by the uterus and placenta. Synchronized Doppler and electrophysiological acquisitions will be performed to produce a unique dataset for the identification of a mathematical model describing the CVS. This will be achieved through robust and accurate extraction of time series representing the characteristics of the CVS in healthy pregnancies. Through an innovative aggregating strategy proposed to improve clinical reliability, the obtained model will be translated into a coupling map, i.e., a graphical representation of the relationships between the CVS subsystems and their variables. Being more intuitive and easier to interpret, this representation is particularly suitable for its clinical use and uptake. Finally, the comparison between the coupling maps of healthy and complicated pregnancies will allow identifying anomalies in the interactions between the CVS subsystems and designing/training a machine learning classifier to automatically discern between them. The outcomes of MEASURE will improve our understanding of the physiological mechanisms underlying pregnancy and original causes of complications, paving the way for the development of novel, powerful, diagnostic tools for timely diagnosis and, possibly, prediction of pregnancy complications. The support of academic, industrial, and clinical partners will provide all the instruments to achieve the envisioned scientific breakthroughs and favour their clinical translation.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN · EindhovenCoordinatorNetherlands
  • PHILIPS ELECTRONICS NEDERLAND BV · EindhovenNetherlands

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union