When mice were subjected to repeated bullying episodes, in the areas of the brain that dealt with emotion and social behavior:
“…the genes for hormone receptors responsible for making the brain sensitive to certain social stimuli had become more active, leading to the production of additional receptors. (Receptors act as hormone-specific doorways; when a brain region has more of them, more hormone molecules can come in at one time, causing the region to be more affected by the amount of hormone molecules in its midst.)”Such changes could make it more difficult for targets of bullying to make friends in the future and suffer social anxiety over the long term. Whether positive experiences or therapy can ever completely erase these effects has yet to be determined.
Full story at Live Science.