Neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers.
Relational bullying in schools is one of the most frequent forms of violence and can have severe negative health impact, e.g. depression. Social exclusion is the most prominent form of relational bullying that can be operationalized experimentally. The present study used MR-based perfusion imaging (...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2021-01-01
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Series: | PLoS ONE |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255681 |
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author | Markus Kiefer Eun-Jin Sim Sabrina Heil Rebecca Brown Bärbel Herrnberger Manfred Spitzer Georg Grön |
author_facet | Markus Kiefer Eun-Jin Sim Sabrina Heil Rebecca Brown Bärbel Herrnberger Manfred Spitzer Georg Grön |
author_sort | Markus Kiefer |
collection | DOAJ |
description | Relational bullying in schools is one of the most frequent forms of violence and can have severe negative health impact, e.g. depression. Social exclusion is the most prominent form of relational bullying that can be operationalized experimentally. The present study used MR-based perfusion imaging (pCASL) to investigate the neural signatures of social exclusion and its relationship with individually different extent of previous bullying experience. Twenty-four teenagers reporting bullying experience at different extent were scanned during a virtual ball-tossing (Cyberball game). Our findings showed that social exclusion (relative to social inclusion) activated frontal brain areas: sub- and perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (sg/pgACC), left inferior frontal cortex (IFG), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Positive relationship between exclusion-specific signal increase and individually different extents of prior bullying experience was for the first time observed in left IFG and sgACC. This suggests that more frequent prior experience has conditioned greater mentalizing and/or rumination, in order to cope with the situation. While this interpretation remains speculative, the present data show that the experience of being bullied partly sensitizes the neural substrate relevant for the processing of social exclusion. |
first_indexed | 2024-12-14T07:46:57Z |
format | Article |
id | doaj.art-93a44ed2b32a472eb8c39df3282f6d32 |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 1932-6203 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-12-14T07:46:57Z |
publishDate | 2021-01-01 |
publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
record_format | Article |
series | PLoS ONE |
spelling | doaj.art-93a44ed2b32a472eb8c39df3282f6d322022-12-21T23:10:52ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032021-01-01168e025568110.1371/journal.pone.0255681Neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers.Markus KieferEun-Jin SimSabrina HeilRebecca BrownBärbel HerrnbergerManfred SpitzerGeorg GrönRelational bullying in schools is one of the most frequent forms of violence and can have severe negative health impact, e.g. depression. Social exclusion is the most prominent form of relational bullying that can be operationalized experimentally. The present study used MR-based perfusion imaging (pCASL) to investigate the neural signatures of social exclusion and its relationship with individually different extent of previous bullying experience. Twenty-four teenagers reporting bullying experience at different extent were scanned during a virtual ball-tossing (Cyberball game). Our findings showed that social exclusion (relative to social inclusion) activated frontal brain areas: sub- and perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (sg/pgACC), left inferior frontal cortex (IFG), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Positive relationship between exclusion-specific signal increase and individually different extents of prior bullying experience was for the first time observed in left IFG and sgACC. This suggests that more frequent prior experience has conditioned greater mentalizing and/or rumination, in order to cope with the situation. While this interpretation remains speculative, the present data show that the experience of being bullied partly sensitizes the neural substrate relevant for the processing of social exclusion.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255681 |
spellingShingle | Markus Kiefer Eun-Jin Sim Sabrina Heil Rebecca Brown Bärbel Herrnberger Manfred Spitzer Georg Grön Neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers. PLoS ONE |
title | Neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers. |
title_full | Neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers. |
title_fullStr | Neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers. |
title_full_unstemmed | Neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers. |
title_short | Neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers. |
title_sort | neural signatures of bullying experience and social rejection in teenagers |
url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255681 |
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