A new study published in the journal,
Molecular Psychiatry states that the effects of being bullied are not just psychological. The latest research shows that the brains of adolescents who are regularly bullied may show physical, structural change. This could increase their chances of suffering from mental illness.
Burke Quinlan from King’s College, London and her team were the first ones to show that chronic peer victimisation during adolescence impacts mental health via structural brain changes. The team analysed the data, questionnaires and brain scans of 682 participants from England, Ireland, France and Germany. These participants were part of the IMAGEN long-term project that assessed the brain development and mental health of adolescents. For the purpose of the project, high-resolution brain scans of the participants were taken when they were 14 and 19 years old.
The participants had to complete questionnaires about whether they had been bullied and to what extent periodically. These questionnaires conducted at the age of 14, 16 and 19. Amongst all the participants, 36 of the 682 participants were found to have experienced chronic bullying. Their data were compared with rest. Changes in brain volume, levels of depression, anxiety and hyperactivity were taken into account at the age of 19.
The results found that bullying did, in fact, decrease the volume of parts of the brain called the
caudate and
putamen. These changes were found to partly explain the higher levels of anxiety participants had at the age of 19.
Quinlan says that it is worrying as almost 30% of young people are victimised in one way or another, with a part of them having to endure bullying almost every day. She concluded by saying that apart from the adolescence being a time for new experiences, it is also a period of extensive brain development. Hence, she urges that every effort must be made to limit bullying before it becomes a severe problem.
