Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Background: Youth concussions are typically caused by sports and contribute to a significant public health burden. Despite the vast implications of youth brain injury, understanding the risk of concussion in sporting contexts is poor given the difficulty in monitoring concussive risk factors and events. Objective: To assess head biomechanics during high-school wrestling matches. Methods: Twenty-nine female (ages 15-18) high-school wrestlers competed in 229 high school wrestling matches (2022-2023 season) while wearing instrumented mouthguards (iMGs) to measure head movement and head biomechanics. Head impacts were categorized based on video-analysis according to mat placement (centre/edge), offensiveness (offensive/defensive/neutral), and wrestling manoeuver (hand-fighting/headbutt/head snap/ground move/pin/takedown/throw/other). Peak biomechanics were examined and mean differences across position, offensiveness, and wrestling manoeuvre were estimated using multiple multilevel linear regression nesting athletes within teams. Results: iMGs recorded a total of 1,315 video-verified head impacts. Mat location was not associated with head biomechanics. Offensiveness type was significantly associated with peak angular velocity: head impacts during neutral moves demonstrated significantly lower head accelerations relative to offensive moves. Wrestling maneuver displayed a significant relationship between peak linear acceleration and head-butting and takedowns relative to hand-fighting. Head-butting, ground moves, takedowns, and other manoeuvres were associated with increases in head linear velocity relative to hand-fighting. Finally, only ground moves and takedowns were associated with increases in peak angular velocity relative to hand-fighting. Conclusion: Head impacts in high school youth wrestlers vary according to offensiveness and manoeuver, with high impact manoeuvres resulting in higher head accelerations.