Beth A. Winkelstein
Professor
Bioengineering (BE)
Honors and Awards: ASME YC Fung Award - 2006, NSF CAREER Award - 2006, Ford Motor Company Award for Outstanding Faculty Advising - 2006
Research Expertise: Biomechanics | Neuroengineering | Orthopaedic Bioengineering
The broad goal of Beth's research is to understand the mechanisms of injury that produce whiplash, sports-related, and other painful injuries. By combining biomechanical and immunological techniques, her lab can define the relationships between injury to the cervical spine/neck and physiological cascades of persistent pain. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding injury to individual structures in the neck, such as the facet joints, nerve roots and spinal cord and how mechanical loading to these structures elicits pain. Through this work she can begin to develop thresholds for mechanical injury that produce persistent pain; and work towards a definition of the neck's tolerance for painful injury. Additional research efforts are aimed at understanding the role of biomechanics in the neuroimmunologic changes of the central nervous system that contribute to persistent pain. Applications of her current work are in the areas of automotive and whiplash-related injury and sports injuries and have implications for design efforts in automobiles that are aimed at preventing whiplash injuries.
Member of:- Center for Human Modeling and Simulation (HMS)
- Institute for Medicine and Engineering (IME)
- Center for Engineering Cells and Regeneration (CECR)
Affiliations: Associate Professor of Neurosurgery (SOM); Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education; Member, Neuroscience Graduate Group
Education:
PhD Biomedical Engineering 1999 - Duke University
BSE Bioengineering 1993 - University of Pennsylvania
Recent Publications 
- Spinal neuronal plasticity is evident within 1 day after a painful cervical facet joint injury, Crosby, N.D. | Weisshaar, C.L. | Winkelstein, B.A., Neuroscience Letters, 2013
- An anatomical and immunohistochemical characterization of afferents innervating the C6-C7 facet joint after painful joint loading in the rat, Kras, J.V. | Tanaka, K. | Gilliland, T.M. | Winkelstein, B.A., Spine, 2013
- The prostaglandin E2 receptor, EP2, is upregulated in the dorsal root ganglion after painful cervical facet joint injury in the rat, Kras, J.V. | Dong, L. | Winkelstein, B.A., Spine, 2013
- ProDisc cervical arthroplasty does not alter facet joint contact pressure during lateral bending or axial torsion, Jaumard, N.V. | Bauman, J.A. | Guarino, B.B. | Gokhale, A.J. | Lipschutz, D.E. | Weisshaar, C.L. | Welch, W.C. | Winkelstein, B.A., Spine, 2013
- Facet joint contact pressure is not significantly affected by ProDisc cervical disc arthroplasty in sagittal bending: A single-level cadaveric study, Bauman, J.A. | Jaumard, N.V. | Guarino, B.B. | Weisshaar, C.L. | Lipschutz, D.E. | Welch, W.C. | Winkelstein, B.A., Spine Journal, 2012