Matthew Frosch

Matthew Frosch, MD, PhD

Dr. Frosch's group focuses on animal models of neurodegenerative diseases.

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is caused by the deposition of Ab in the blood vessel walls of the eptomeninges and cerebral cortex. This is the same peptide that forms the cores of plaques in Alzheimer disease (AD), and CAA a near constant concomitant of AD.CAA can, however, also occur in the absence of AD and represents a relatively common cause of hemorrhagic strokes.

His group is using transgenic models of Ab deposition in mouse vasculature in combination with serial in vivo imaging to define the processes that control the location, rate and pattern of the development of this form of vascular pathology. They are also looking at potential therapeutic interventions for AD to determine whether they also affect the vascular deposition of Ab, and at what steps iin the process this occurs.

Dr. Frosch's group also functions as part of a program project grant investigating the underlying biology of presenilins (PS) and their relationship to AD. They serve as the transgenic mouse core, with responsibilities for developing new lines of mice, maintaining them and helping to characterize their brains - both in terms of underlying structure and the development of AD-like pathology.

Dr. Frosch's clinical activities are as the neuropathlogist for the Alzheimer and Parkinson Centers based at MGH, where he is involved in clinico-pathologic correlation studies regarding these and other neurodegenerative diseases. His diagnostic expertise also extents to mice, and he works with several outside research groups in the characterization of neuroanatomic and neuropathologic findings in mouse models of disease.