Frequent Bullying Involvement and Brain Morphology in Children

Abstract

Background: Over the past few decades, bullying has been recognized as a considerable public health concern. Involvement in bullying is associated with poor long-term social and psychiatric outcomes for both perpetrators and targets of bullying. Despite this concerning prognosis, few studies have investigated possible neurobiological correlates of bullying involvement that may explain the long-term impact of bullying. Cortical thickness is ideally suited for examining deviations in typical brain development, as it has been shown to detect subtle differences in children with psychopathology. We tested associations between bullying involvement and cortical thickness using a large, population-based cohort.Methods: The study sample consisted of 2,602 participants from the Generation R Study. When children were 8 years old, parents and teachers reported on common forms of child bullying involvement (physical, verbal, and relational). Questions ascertained whether a child was involved as a perpetrator (n = 82), a target of bullying (n = 92), as a combined perpetrator and target of bullying (n = 47), or uninvolved in frequent bullying (n = 2,381). High-resolution structural MRI was conducted when children were 10 years of age. Cortical thickness estimates across the cortical mantle were compared among groups.Results: Children classified as frequent targets of bullying showed thicker cortex in the fusiform gyrus compared to those uninvolved in bullying (B = 0.108, pcorrected < 0.001). Results remained consistent when adjusted for socioeconomic factors, general intelligence, and psychiatric symptoms. Children classified as frequent perpetrators showed thinner cortex in the cuneus region; however, this association did not survive stringent correction for multiple testing. Lastly, no differences in cortical thickness were observed in perpetrator–targets.Discussion: Bullying involvement in young children was associated with differential cortical morphology. Specifically, the fusiform gyrus, often involved in facial processing, showed thicker cortex in targets of frequent bullying. Longitudinal data are necessary to demonstrate the temporality of the underlying neurobiology associated with bullying involvement.

The association between body mass index and brain morphology in children: a population-based study

“…Image processing and quality assessment T 1 -weighted images were processed using FreeSurfer Software, version 6.0 (http://surfe r.nmr.mgh.harva rd.edu). The technical details of these procedures are described elsewhere (Muetzel et al 2019). In brief, this included removal of the non-brain tissue, Talairach transformation, segmentation of white and grey matter structures, tessellation of the greywhite matter boundary, topology correction and surface deformation to identify the cortical grey-white matter boundary and the grey-cerebrospinal fluid boundary.…”

Structural brain differences in pre-adolescents who persist in and recover from stuttering

“…FreeSurfer image reconstructions of the T1-weighted images were visually inspected for quality. All scans rated as unusable were excluded from statistical analyses ( Muetzel et al, 2019 ). Diffusion image quality was assessed by manual inspection (visualization of residual error maps from the tensor fit and inter-subject registration) and automated methods (DTIprep toolkit, https://www.nitrc.org/projects/dtiprep ) ( Muetzel et al, 2018 ).…”

Cyberbullying and Adolescent Neurobiology

“…In addition, a review on traditional bullying in young people found that the brain experiences peer victimization in a similar way to physical pain, and that these experiences can become biologically embedded in the physiology of the developing person, thereby increasing their risk of developing mental health problems ( Vaillancourt et al, 2013 ). Recently, Muetzel et al (2019) conducted a study of 2,602 children regarding traditionally bullying, and involved the 8-year-old children, their parents and teachers reporting on common forms of child bullying involvement (physical, verbal, and relational), and then completing a structural MRI scans when the children were 10 years old. The study found that those children who were frequently bullied had thicker cortex in the fusiform gyrus, a region suggested to be implicated in a wide array of functions, including facial and emotion processing, language, and theory of mind ( Muetzel et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Recently, Muetzel et al (2019) conducted a study of 2,602 children regarding traditionally bullying, and involved the 8-year-old children, their parents and teachers reporting on common forms of child bullying involvement (physical, verbal, and relational), and then completing a structural MRI scans when the children were 10 years old. The study found that those children who were frequently bullied had thicker cortex in the fusiform gyrus, a region suggested to be implicated in a wide array of functions, including facial and emotion processing, language, and theory of mind ( Muetzel et al, 2019 ). Whilst these aforementioned studies shed light on how victims of bullying perceive their bullies and highlights that frequent bullying could affect brain development, further research is needed which focuses on cyberbullying specifically, as well as over time.…”