“…The psychopathological parameters are depressive symptoms, impulsivity, borderline personality traits and self‐defeating behaviours (all of them increased in BN patients), and the neurobiological ones are 24‐hour excretion of serotonin (5HT) and capability to suppress cortisol after dexamethasone administration (the two of them decreased in BN patients). As research in the field of addictions has revealed not only the co‐morbid presence in patients with alcohol use/misuse of the four isolated clinical variables (Kazemi, Flowers, Shou, Levine, & Van Horn, ; MacLean, & French, ; Picci, et al ., ; Pringuey, et al, ) but also the serotonergic system (Seneviratne et al ., ; Watanabe et al ., ; Wrzosek et al ., ) and the pattern of cortisol liberation that can affect alcohol consumption (Badrick, et al ., ; Junghanns, Horbach, Ehrenthal, Blank, & Backhaus, ; Stalder et al ., ), the first objective of our study was to analyse the specificity of depressive symptoms, impulsivity, borderline personality symptoms and self‐defeating behaviours in order to predict alcohol heavy use (AHU) in a sample of patients with BN. The second objective was to test the hypothesis that 5HT and hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity will be associated with AHU, considering that BN patients will have a specific profile, different from that found in healthy individuals.…”