Beyond the blow to self-esteem, bullying can hurt the brain, too

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A reader's contribution

 

Beyond the blow to self-esteem, bullying can hurt the brain, too
Study links harassment to cognitive deficits and mental-health problems

 

ANNE McILROY
Globe and Mail, Mar. 11, 2010

 

They lurk in hallways, bathrooms, around the next blind corner. But for the
children they have routinely teased or tormented, bullies effectively live
in the victims' brains as well - and not just as a terrifying memory.

 

Preliminary evidence shows that bullying can produce signs of stress,
cognitive deficits
and mental-health problems.

 

Now University of Ottawa psychologist Tracy Vaillancourt and her colleagues
at McMaster University in Hamilton plan to scan the brains of teens who have
been regularly
Humiliated and ostracized by their peers to look for structural differences
compared with other
children.

 

"We know there is a functional difference. We know their brains are acting
differently, but we don't know if it is structural as well," said Dr.
Vaillancourt, an expert in the biology of bullying.

 

She says she hopes her work will legitimize the plight of children who are
bullied,
and encourage parents, teachers and school boards to take the problem more
seriously.

 

Dr. Vaillancourt has been following a group of 17-year-olds since they were
12. All
70 of the children were routinely bullied during those years - teased,
harassed, threatened or excluded.

 

Physical violence is relatively rare, she says, because their tormentors are
smart
enough to know it will get them into trouble.

 

"For many of these kids, every day is a nightmare," she said. They go to
school and no one will talk to them. Someone deliberately bumps into them in
the hallway, and all the other children laugh. They get called horrible
names.

 

The researchers will start with brain scans of 15 of the extreme cases, like
the child who stood in her gym uniform while other kids put her school
clothes in the toilet and urinated on them.

 

There are also teenagers in the study who have been bullied for five
straight school
years.

 

The scientists have already shown that children who are bullied are more
likely than other kids to have cognitive deficits.

 

They score lower on tests that measure verbal memory and executive function,
a set of skills needed to focus on a task and get the job done.
Mental-health problems, such as depression, are also more common.

 

Dr. Vaillancourt suspects they will also have a smaller hippocampus, a part
of the brain involved in memory. Depression has been shown to be related to
a smaller hippocampus.

 

As well, animal studies have shown that chronic high levels of stress can
kill brain
cells. Dr. Vaillancourt says this kind of damage may help explain why
children who
are bullied often perform poorly academically.

 

She will also be looking for a smaller prefrontal cortex, which plays a role
in being
able to pay attention and other executive functions.

 

These kinds of differences have been documented in functional magnetic
resonance imaging studies of children who have been neglected or abused. Dr.
Vaillancourt suspects
the chronic stress of being bullied will have a similar impact.

 

She and her colleagues have already published research showing that boys who
are bullied tend to produce more of the stress hormone cortisol. It is as if
their system is in permanent overdrive.
It's the opposite for the girls; they tend to produce less cortisol than
average, as though their stress response system is overly subdued.

 

"At some point, their brains stop reacting," said Dr. Vaillancourt, who
holds a Canada Research Chair in children's mental health and violence
prevention.

 

These changes to the brain's stress response system may be linked to the
higher rates
of depression among children who are regularly picked on by their peers,
especially girls. The adolescent years are when peer relations are most
important and when girls, more than anything, want to belong, Dr.
Vaillancourt says.

 

She and her colleagues have been following 140 children in the Hamilton
area. Half were never bullied, and serve as a control group. Among the other
half, some Have been bullied every year since they were 12. But others have
had a reprieve. The researchers plan to do brain scans of these teens to see
if being bullied when they were younger had a lasting impact on their
brains.

 

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