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Because BDD is a serious disorder with potentially tragic consequences, a better understanding of its root causes would be a welcome medical advance. But how are we to think about a condition that is associated with widely disparate personality types and seems so driven by cultural pressures? Unlike mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, where biology clearly plays a major role, it's hard to see how excessive concern with the shape of one's nose or lips arises from brain mechanisms gone askew.

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Now medical researchers believe they have found a biological cause. In December, a team of UCLA psychiatrists conducted an fMRI study of BDD patients. Their results suggest that BDD patients may suffer from faulty visual processing, causing them to have skewed images of themselves and others. While it's an intriguing study and could provide some insights into BDD, it is ultimately inconclusive and underscores the fallacy of basing behavior on fMRI brain scans.