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Background: The taste sensitivity to phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) is one of the classical genetic markers in human studies. PTC is of great interest from the medical point of view since a number of associations of the taster status with human diseases have been found. The aim of our study was to evaluate the population structure of Ukraine in relation to PTC sensitivity.Methods: The study involved 533 people (78 males and 455 females) aged from 16 to 25 years. The PTC solution in the concentration of 0.13% was prepared according to the method of Harris and Kalmus. The participants of the study analyzed the taste of the filter paper impregnated with PTC. If the trial subjects tasted PTC as ''bitter'', ''very bitter'', ''bitterish'', the phenotype was defined as a taster. If the trial subject did not taste PTC (''no taste'', ''taste of paper''), he/she was referred to a non-taster.Results: The structure of the sample of the Ukrainian population studied in relation to the phenotypic and genotypic frequency associated with the phenylthiocarbamide sensitivity has been studied. It has been shown that in the population there are 22% of those who do not feel the taste of phenylthiocarbamide. Among males there are a few more non-tasters than among females, however, the differences are not significant. The frequency of the dominant and recessive allele of the phenylthiocarbamide sensitivity gene in the sample calculated on the basis of the Hardy-Weinberg equation is generally p T = 0.55 and q t = 0.45, respectively.Conclusions: Frequencies of alleles T and t obtained in the male and female population under research are very close to the frequencies of the same alleles in some populations of India. Data of this study supplement the currently available information in relation to the genetic structure of modern Ukrainian cities.

Aim:Fear is an ancient natural reaction of a human being to a threat and it is also an adaptive feature. Obsessive fear can transfer into phobias, which lead to a clinical problem. In spite of many studies done on fear, many questions are yet not clarified. In the former Soviet Union, research on human behaviour traits was mostly tabooed. The current research will fill some gaps on the ‘behavioural map’ of Ukraine in relationship to fear distributions in two successive generations of residents of Ukraine.Subjects and Methods:Eight hundred and sixty-seven residents of Ukraine, predominantly residents of Kharkov and Kharkov region participated in the study. All participants were distributed into groups of younger and older generations. Twenty-four emotional states of fear have been studied by Ivleva-Shcherbatyh questionnaire, developed and validated in Slavs samples.Results:The population analysis of 24 types of fear has shown that sex differences were found mostly among members of the younger generation. The average value of sex differences from the amplitude trait of variation made up approximately 20%. More significant differences between members of different generations have been found in females. The age dynamics of fears within each generation has been detected.Conclusions:The population analysis of fears in Ukraine has demonstrated that the strongest fears independently of the generation were related to diseases of relatives and to problems in the case of diseases of relatives.

Background: A wide range of normal and clinically significant behavior traits, including fears, were intensively studied and heritability coefficients were obtained for many of them. A heritability value is a population-based trait, so it may significantly vary in different human populations. In the former Soviet Union, research on human behavior traits was mostly tabooed. Ukraine is a population with a unique history and cultural background and with a specific multiethnic composition. Until 1991, Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Union. The current research is devoted to heritability of fear assessment in Ukrainian megapolice sample.Subjects and methods: 2305 individuals (741 males and 1564 females), aged 14-72 years, participated in the current study. Data were collected during 2004-2007. All participants lived in Ukraine and were Slavs (predominantly Ukrainians and Russians). Most of them were Kharkov city residents (Kharkov is the second city in Ukraine by its population size after the capital Kiev city, and Kharkov region includes about 1,730,000 inhabitants). Most participants were engaged without relatives and were used only for population distribution evaluation. Some volunteers were enrolled with a relative of the first degree of relatedness (with a parent or a sibling). These formed 352 parent-offspring pairs and 104 sibling pairs. Spouses were enrolled in the experiment for a potential assortative mating effect searching. The total number of marital couples was 74.24 emotional states of fear have been studied by Ivleva-Shcherbatyh questionnaire, which was developed and validated by Russian psychologists in Slavs samples.Evaluation and decomposition of total phenotypic variance were performed according to the classical Falconer approach, based on correlation coefficients between relatives. Assortative mating effect was taken into account and correlation coefficients between relatives were adjusted for traits with statistically significant correlation coefficients between wives and husbands.Results: As a result of the research, correlation coefficients of fears q between relatives and mates were obtained in the range 0.18-0.77. In majority of cases, correlation coefficients were higher in sibling pairs compared to «parent-offspring» pairs. For three fears (psychiatric disorders development, disease of relatives, and suicide commitment) there was a positive assortative mating in the population (correlation coefficients q were in the range 0.35-0.43), so for these traits, correlation Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Ain Shams University. coefficients' modification between relatives was needed to be done. Heritability coefficients of nine types of fear were in the range 26-48%, among them the lowest heritability coefficient was recorded for fear of suicide commitment and the highest one was recorded for fear of aggressive behavior possibility to the relatives.Conclusions: The conducted research demonstrated genetic component presence for nine types of fear -psychic disorder developme...