Dr. Christian Puta was appointed to the Head of Research at the Department of Sports Medicine and Health Promotion in 2011. He finished his diploma’s degree in sport science with the focus on prevention and rehabilitation with the top degree of 1.0 (range 1.0-5.0). His PhD-Thesis (grade: summa cum laude) has been awarded (third prize) often the Germanys most renowned “Science Award of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB)” in 2008. He and members of his working group received several awards on occasion of research conferences.Currently, Dr. Puta is the leader of the Pain, Perception, Prevention Workgroup at the Department of Sports Medicine and Health Promotion. Dr. Puta is member of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and the German Society of Sports Medicine and Prevention (DGSP).

Dr. Puta´s work mainly focuses on sensori-motor control in chronic (back) pain as well as interactions of experimental data and model-based approaches. He has conducted numerous research projects investigating the influence of chronic back pain onto somatosensory information processing (QST, SEP), muscular reflex responses (EMG) and visual-motor interactions. Furthermore, over the last several years preventive and therapeutic studies about the interaction between the autonomic nervous system and the inflammatory response to pain and exercise have been conducted. Apart from his significant teaching load, he is supervising 4 PhD candidates.