Frontiers in Physiology (Mar 2023)

Roadmap for an imaging and modelling paediatric study in rural NZ

  • Haribalan Kumar,
  • Haribalan Kumar,
  • Haribalan Kumar,
  • Robby Green,
  • Daniel M. Cornfeld,
  • Daniel M. Cornfeld,
  • Paul Condron,
  • Paul Condron,
  • Taylor Emsden,
  • Taylor Emsden,
  • Ayah Elsayed,
  • Ayah Elsayed,
  • Debbie Zhao,
  • Kat Gilbert,
  • Martyn P. Nash,
  • Martyn P. Nash,
  • Alys R. Clark,
  • Merryn H. Tawhai,
  • Kelly Burrowes,
  • Rinki Murphy,
  • Maryam Tayebi,
  • Maryam Tayebi,
  • Josh McGeown,
  • Eryn Kwon,
  • Eryn Kwon,
  • Eryn Kwon,
  • Vickie Shim,
  • Alan Wang,
  • Alan Wang,
  • Alan Wang,
  • Julie Choisne,
  • Laura Carman,
  • Thor Besier,
  • Geoffrey Handsfield,
  • Thiranja Prasad Babarenda Gamage,
  • Jiantao Shen,
  • Gonzalo Maso Talou,
  • Soroush Safaei,
  • Jerome J. Maller,
  • Jerome J. Maller,
  • Davidson Taylor,
  • Leigh Potter,
  • Samantha J. Holdsworth,
  • Samantha J. Holdsworth,
  • Graham A. Wilson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2023.1104838
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14

Abstract

Read online

Our study methodology is motivated from three disparate needs: one, imaging studies have existed in silo and study organs but not across organ systems; two, there are gaps in our understanding of paediatric structure and function; three, lack of representative data in New Zealand. Our research aims to address these issues in part, through the combination of magnetic resonance imaging, advanced image processing algorithms and computational modelling. Our study demonstrated the need to take an organ-system approach and scan multiple organs on the same child. We have pilot tested an imaging protocol to be minimally disruptive to the children and demonstrated state-of-the-art image processing and personalized computational models using the imaging data. Our imaging protocol spans brain, lungs, heart, muscle, bones, abdominal and vascular systems. Our initial set of results demonstrated child-specific measurements on one dataset. This work is novel and interesting as we have run multiple computational physiology workflows to generate personalized computational models. Our proposed work is the first step towards achieving the integration of imaging and modelling improving our understanding of the human body in paediatric health and disease.

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