Monozygotic vs. dizygotic twin behavior in artificial mouse twins

Adult inbred mice of an isogenic strain (AKR/NHan or C57BL/6J Han) differ in social (sexual and agonistic), emotional and psychomotoric behavior, depending on the kind of manipulation to which they were subjected at an early ontogenetic stage. Monozygotic twins (MZT) from eight-cell stages halved and transferred to uterine foster mothers were compared with dizygotic twins (DZT) from nonreduced but transferred eight-cell stages and with naturally born animals (NBA). Generally, early embryonic conditions predict the behavioral characteristics of the adult animals to a high degree. The MZT are motorially less active, less emotional, less aggressive and less socially interested than DZT and NBA. In tests of spontaneous social behavior (allogrooming, anogenital licking, mounting, fighting), as well as in tests for emotionality (open field: crossed fields and defecation), these behavioral patterns occurred less frequently in MZT than in DZT; the NBA were mostly intermediate. The copulatory pattern of male MZT differs from that of male DZT by a shortage of intromission latency and duration; furthermore, MZT pairs do not build up a steady rank order in competitive copulation tests, as opposed to DZT and NBA pairs. In a test for psychomotoric behavior (swimming), the MZT prefer "floating" as a survival strategy, whereas the DZT and NBA prefer "adult swimming." Therefore, it can be concluded that these behavioral differences may be caused by the particular psychosocial environment in which the twins grow up or may be due to early prenatal peculiarities, such as inadequate synchronization of the developmental status of uterus and embryo.