His scientific interests include MRI imaging of the human brain and structural morphometric analysis of its changes over time.
Such changes can be induced and maintained by a wide variety of factors such as aging or developmental processes, learning, pharmacological manipulation, or multiple neurological diseases.
Diseases such as stroke, brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease or dementia, inflammatory processes and others can be better understood in this way and possibly treated more effectively in the future.
In addition, it has been known for some time that the brain also exhibits significantly more plasticity than previously thought, so that changes in shape and volume can be induced by training and learning, much like muscles.
By using Voxel-Guided Morphometry, Matthias seeks to help analyze, image, and quantify the structural change of the brain between different groups through statistical comparisons as well as individually for each subject or patient.
This should contribute to a deeper understanding of the human brain in healthy and diseased individuals.