Overview

• Researchers measured neural and attentional responses as tweens aged 11–14 and adults viewed first-person videos of bullying versus positive social interactions.
• Bullying scenes rapidly engaged social and emotional brain networks together with autonomic threat-response systems.
• A separate adult group showed stronger emotional focus on bullying scenes, confirmed by eye-tracking patterns and enlarged pupil responses.
• Participants with real-life histories of being bullied displayed larger neural alarm responses to the bullying videos.
• The authors warn that repeated activation of these distress pathways may pose mental and somatic health risks, and the findings are published in JNeurosci (DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0738-25.2025).