Bullying, Psychosis-Like Experiences, and Functional Network Connectivity in Adolescents

Bullying is an adverse childhood experience affecting up to one-third of the global population and linked to psychosis-like experiences (PLEs), which increase the risk of psychotic disorders. This study aimed to investigate the association between the severity and persistence of bullying and PLEs, including non-paranoid, hallucination-like experiences and their distress, and whether multiscale brain functional network connectivity (msFNC) mediates the pathway from bullying to PLEs. METHODS: We used data from the ABCD Study, a large, multisite, population-based prospective cohort study following U.S. adolescents. We included adolescents with complete bullying and PLEs assessments at the 2- and 3-year follow-ups (T1: n=10,939, 47% females; T2: n=10,102). We examined the associations between bullying severity and temporal exposure and PLEs using linear mixed-effects models. In a 2-year resting-state fMRI subsample (n=5,280), we used a Neuromark framework to analyze whether msFNC statistically mediated the pathway from bullying to PLEs. RESULTS: Higher PLEs were associated with the presence and severity of bullying (non-bullied vs. mild bullying: d=-0.24, CI:-0.30 to -0.19, p