What causes BDD?
We don't know exactly what causes BDD and we're in the process of trying to find out what are all the causes of it. The research has really only been going on for BDD for probably the past couple decades and we're just starting to do more and more biology research and neurobiology research into what may be some of the causes. So far there are several theories that cause it. Given that there are some similarities to OCD, some people have developed hypothesis that there are problems with similar brain regions as you see in OCD. Some brain studies have shown there are brain abnormalities in the same regions. There may be some abnormalities in other regions that we see as a result of brain injury. There are some people that have brain injury to their frontal lobe that can develop BDD symptoms all of a sudden. We're trying to figure out if there is some type of pattern of an abnormal brain region that is causing some of these symptoms. Those only account for part of the problem because there are other problems that people with BDD have. One is that they value appearance a lot and they think that other people value appearance so they think not only am I ugly, but attractiveness is the most important thing in somebody's life. It's what everyone else is using to evaluate everyone else. If they just thought they were ugly, then they wouldn't have this problem.
