Verified by 
Key points
- Bullying that doesn't touch the body can still do serious harm to the brain.
- According to extensive research, bullying and abuse can damage the hippocampus.
- The hippocampus is involved in learning and memory, so kids being targeted by bullying may struggle at school.
- While we can't minimize the harmful effects of bullying, the brain is innately wired to repair and recover.
We’re in the back-to-school phase of the year with its promise of learning and growth, but what about the kids who will be bullied this year? From a scientific perspective, these targeted students won’t just have compromised learning; they may suffer from compromised brains. And it’s not just at school. From athletes in the gym to employees in the office, bullying does serious harm to the brain.
Neuroscientists know that the brain operates like a complex network, but they can also document particular areas in the brain as they respond to stimuli like bullying. Whether you’re being bullied at school, sports practices, or the workplace, brain scientists document just how harmful bullying and abuse are to the part of the brain involved in learning and memory retention, namely the hippocampus.
Drs. Tracy Vaillancourt and Iryna Palamarchuk provide a meta-analysis of the last few decades of research into how bullying and abuse impact brain functioning. In their overview, they focus on the hippocampus as it forms, stores, retrieves, and emotionally tags memories.
What happens in a brain being targeted by bullying
The hippocampus’ ability to record episodic memory becomes impaired by stress and fear, according to studies ranging from 1998 to 2008. Vaillancourt and Palamarchuk explain that “psychological stress” activates the threat-detection center in the brain, the amygdala, which frustrates the hippocampus’ process needed for “encoding and working memory.” Imagine a student at school, an athlete at practice, or an employee at work who strives to remember and learn but finds that their brain isn’t functioning properly.
As Vaillancourt and Palamarchuk document, the fear and stress of bullying can lead to “hippocampal atrophy and memory deficits.” Anyone who has been bullied or abused knows that feeling of paralysis, the freezing with anxiety and shame, the struggle to concentrate or even remember what happened and in what sequence. These emotional and physical experiences make much more sense when we realize that our brains are suffering from “atrophy” and “deficits” when faced with the stress and fear of interpersonal violence.
While it’s commonplace to talk about a student’s grades dropping as an indicator of being victimized by bullying, we rarely discuss the fact that the fear and stress arising from this kind of destructive behavior is scrambling the brain’s ability to function properly. Among a series of studies, Vaillancourt records in her own lab that “this stress-induced effect on hippocampus-dependent learning potentially contributes to the memory deficits found in bullied children.” It’s an incredibly sad irony that children go to school to learn and strengthen their memory, but those who are bullied may, in fact, find their learning and memory harmed.
Without touching the body, bullying and abuse can harm the brain.
Our society and law tend to see physical harm as more serious, but according to neuroscientific research from 2012 to 2018, Vaillancourt and Palamarchuk demonstrate that “being verbally abused by peers in adolescence,” as well as “childhood maltreatment, another form of interpersonal trauma,” appear on brain scans as lessening the volume of the hippocampus. No wonder bullied and abused children have such difficulties with school when the part of the brain critically important to learning is being eroded, shrunk, and shriveled by interpersonal trauma.
In study after study, Vaillancourt and Palamarchuk cite research on how “emotional childhood neglect,” PTSD from “maltreated youth,” or “early life stress” result in reductions in the volume of the hippocampus and, in some cases, the amygdala, and these reductions manifest in mental struggles ranging from depression to PTSD symptoms to behavioral problems. From 2000 to 2016, brain research documents just how devastating all forms of bullying and abuse are to brains. The body does not need to be touched for significant harm to impact the brain in serious and lasting ways.
The brain is innately wired to repair and recover from bullying and abuse.
While the brain is clearly at risk from the stress and fear of bullying and abuse, it is also innately wired to repair and recover. In The Bullied Brain, published in 2022, I bring together extensive research on the damage done by bullying and abuse, but it’s also critical to note the subtitle: “Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health.” For every study of the harm abuse does to the brain, there is another study that documents the brain’s ability to unwire harm and rewire in health.
Especially for young people suffering from memories that aren’t working well, learning that doesn’t come easily, symptoms of trauma, behavioral problems, or feelings of depression or anxiety, they need to know that if they were or are being bullied or abused, it is likely harmful to their brain. If they’re being bullied or abused, they need immediate help because it’s serious from a brain perspective.
Children and young people need to know that while they may not have bruises, cuts, or broken bones, they may have brain traumas and distortions from the words hurled at them, the emotional neglect they suffered, or the early life experiences that they endured. It is time to have science-informed, research-backed, courageous, caring conversations about how all forms of bullying and abuse have the potential to seriously hurt the brain. Just as important, we need to have evidence-based discussions about how to heal neurological scars and restore brain health.
These kinds of conversations would make back-to-school in 2023 a time of new understanding, a time to question the status quo, a time of empowerment and inspiration for all those who have bullied and abused others and all those who have been targeted. If we prioritize the health and functioning of the hippocampus, maybe bullying, abuse, maltreatment, and emotional neglect will become distant memories.
References
Fraser, J. (2022). The Bullied Brain. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Vaillancourt, T., & Palamarchuk, I. (2022). “Integrative Brain Dynamics in Childhood Bullying Victimization.” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 16:1-24.
