Why Identical Twins Can Have Different Personalities

Why Identical Twins Can Have Different Personalities
Name:
Institution:
In this world, there are plenty of amazing things even scientists cannot explain the real fact. One of these interesting creatures is twins. It is universally acknowledged that twins are not very common among us while if we have twin friends in our life, we can find that they look like the same, they wear the same, they have the same school, and they even eat the same. However, even they have a lot of common features and live in the same environment, they still behave so differently. In my essay, I want to figure out why twins have the same gene and they live in the same environment while they still behave so differently.
After doing my research, the reason why identical twins can have a different personality because their brain may be changed in the long run because they interact with the same environment in different ways. In our brain there is neurogenesis called hippocampal neurogenesis, Adult hippocampal neurogenesis allows lifelong plastic adaptation of the hippocampal neural network in the face of environmental complexity and novelty, is regulated by physical and cognitive aspects of behavioral activity and can be quantified in a straightforward way and captured with numerical key parameters. (1). In an experiment, Researcher Julia Freund and colleagues at various German universities kept 40 genetically- identical female mice in an enriched environment for 3 months. The mice were tagged with radio-frequency identification (RFID) transponders, and 20 antennas, distributed over the entire environment, monitored their current locations (Kempermann, 2008). (2). The researcher found that with the time increase the mice’s neurogenesis increase while it differs. In this same environment, some mice liked to wander in more areas while others who are active only like stay in one small area. By this foundation, the researchers concluded that the mice’s divergent experiences of their environment were driving their brain changes. At the end of the experiment, the number of new neurons (BrdU and NeuN double-positive cells) correlated significantly with cRE at T4, r = 0.46 (t = 3.227, P= 0.0026) (Kempermann, 2008). Mice who explored their habitat more broadly also grew more new neurons in the hippocampus. An estimate of distance traveled (i.e., number of unique, nonrepetitive antenna contacts over the period of the experiment) showed a weaker but still significant association with adult neurogenesis (r = 0.345; t = 2.268; P = 0.029), which explained 12% of the variance. (3) The research used specific data to shows that the different way of interacting with the environment can cause a different amount of the neurons (Kempermann, 2008). In this way, for twins, with the different number of neurons in hippocampal neurogenesis will result in the twins having different brain’s form and finally different personalities.
It is essential to understand that monozygotic twins develop as a result of the split of one single fertilized egg. For this reason, they start growing and developing as genetically identical but differences in their gene expression differentiate more as they grow. Although the twins may look similar than other ordinary children, they are no longer as identical as they were at the time of birth. This clearly indicates that in spite of their practically identical genotype, the twins may also be phenotypically different. Twins are usually two different individuals from the time of birth, this is because if they were ideally identical, then it would be possible to see and treat them as package whereby they are offered with similar toys and same clothes. This is however not the case because regardless of their physical appearance, they are emotionally and psychologically different and these differences should be supported to promote their happiness.
Twins are likely to develop different personalities depending on how they are impacted by the environment where they grow. Personality is an inherited trait and it is keynoting that twins who have been brought up far apart are more likely to develop similar personalities that a pair of randomly selected individuals. It is also a key understanding that identical twins have more similar personalities than fraternal twins. As they grow up, twins are likely to be affected by two types of environments, the family shared effects and non-shared effects, which are likely to impact their personalities. In a research study conducted by Segal, Hershberger & Arad (2003), found that even though twins are genetically identical and they brought up in the same family environment, they usually do not have the similar personalities. The researchers, however, indicated that small personality differences between the twins are associated with the level of closeness between them.
Researchers have established that twins are likely to react differently to different non-shared environmental factors and this is also likely to facilitate differences between them. The non-shared environmental factors may include extra-familial influences, the interactions between siblings and parental treatment among others. Different studies have been carried out to examine the effects of parent warmth and control on children outcomes. Although, most of the studies conducted infer parenting as a shared environmental factor because of the parent-child interaction which persists between the children and their parents. However, w...