Neurophenomenological study in 42 PD patients that integrates interviews, postural/motor measures, heart rate and electrodermal activity to identify two embodied empathic response types—Resonance Bodyssence and Marginal Resonance Bodyssence—when viewing others' pain.

While it offers little molecular or mechanistic insight for drug discovery, the work identifies clinically relevant heterogeneity in embodied empathy that could inform patient stratification, outcome measures, and targeted non-pharmacological or behavioral interventions in PD research.

Empathy plays a fundamental role in social bonding and intersubjective understanding. While recent research has emphasized how bodily processes shape empathic engagement and underlie individual differences, the impact of bodily disruptions on empathic experience in Parkinson's disease (PD) remains largely unexplored. In this study, we used a neurophenomenological approach to investigate Empathy Bodyssence in PD, conceived as an enacted organization of bodily, affective, and meaning-related dimensions of experience, by integrating first-person experiential data with motor, physiological, and self-report measures. Forty-two individuals with PD watched pain-related and baseline videos. Empathic engagement was assessed through self-reports, postural movement, and physiological recordings (heart rate and electrodermal activity). Following exposure, participants underwent phenomenological interviews designed to capture their experience of witnessing another's suffering. The interview data were analyzed through an iterative, multistage process involving independent coding, triangulation, and advanced analytical tools (CAQDAS, inter-rater agreement assessment, and interactive dashboards) to ensure analytical depth and rigor. Phenomenological analysis enabled us to categorize participants into two groups, distinguished by high versus low levels of bodily resonance in response to viewing pain. These phenomenological groupings were then integrated with quantitative data to reveal two distinct structures through which individuals with PD embodied empathy: Resonance Bodyssence, a response in which emotions are tightly coupled with bodily sensations and movement; and Marginal Resonance Bodyssence, a more observational and cognitively mediated response, marked by reduced bodily resonance. By using phenomenological structure as an organizing level of analysis, the present study shows how interindividual variability in motor and physiological responses in PD is enacted as distinct embodied modes of empathic engagement. In doing so, it advances neurophenomenological approaches and provides a more nuanced, embodied account of empathy in PD as a heterogeneous and dynamically enacted phenomenon.