title: Spatiotemporal patterning of uterine excitation patterns in human labour.
abstract: The mechanisms leading to the initiation of normal, premature or dysfunctional human labour are poorly understood, as animal models are inappropriate, and experimental studies are limited. Computational modelling provides a means of linking non-invasive clinical data with the results of in vitro cell and tissue physiology. Nonlinear wave processes - propagation in an excitable medium - provides a quantitatively testable description of mechanisms of premature and full term labour, and a view of changes in uterine electrophysiology during gestation as a trajectory in excitation and intercellular coupling parameter space. Propagation phenomena can account for both premature and full term labour.
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. a.v.holden@leeds.ac.uk
authors.forename: Eleftheria
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pervolaraki
authors.forename: Arun V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Holden
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007743:Labor, Obstetric; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D008954:Models, Biological; D032389:Myocytes, Smooth Muscle / Q000502:physiology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D062211:Spatio-Temporal Analysis; D014599:Uterus / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*