How Bullying Triggers Immediate Negative Impacts on the Brain

Bullying has an instant negative effect on the brain, according to researchers from Turun yliopisto and the University of Turku, led by Birgitta Paranko and Lauri Nummenmaa (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Exposure to bullying engages social distress circuits in the adolescent and adult brain

Go to source). The study was published in the journal JNeurosci.

The Brain's Immediate Toll of Witnessing Bullying

The study findings showed that when teenagers aged 11-14 and adults observed first-person videos of bullying, their brains stimulated socio-emotional networks, activating their autonomic threat response systems, that leads to perturbing mental state.

A particular group of adults who watched bullying videos, displayed stronger affective and cognitive reactions compared to constructive social relationships, which was established by eye-tracking and pupil size evaluations.

Linking Victimization History to Present Brain Responses

The researchers also discovered that these neural responses and alarm states were linked to viewers having previous real-life experiences being victims of bullying.

In sum, says Nummenmaa, “We mapped distress pathways in the brain that may be promptly engaged when someone gets bullied, and showed that the continuous alarm state is hazardous for both mental and somatic health due to the increased autonomic activation.”

Reference:

1. Exposure to bullying engages social distress circuits in the adolescent and adult brain - (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2025/09/15/JNEUROSCI.0738-25.2025)

Source-Eurekalert