Empathy and compassion are comparable between individuals with cervical spinal cord injury and controls, but their association with interoceptive sensibility differs

The extent to which empathic and compassionate processes depend on bodily signaling remains a central and unresolved question in affective neuroscience. Although converging evidence suggests that empathy and compassion are shaped by bodily dynamics, it remains unclear how these processes are expressed when spinal body–brain signaling is extensively and chronically disrupted. We examined individuals with chronic cervical spinal cord injury (cSCI; n = 30) and healthy controls (n = 27) to determine whether chronic disruption of spinal bodily signaling is associated with differences in self-reported empathic and compassionate dispositions and interoceptive sensibility, and whether the associations of interoceptive sensibility with empathy-related dimensions and compassion differ according to injury status.

Participants completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), Compassion Scale, and MAIA-2, and Bayesian regression models adjusted for age, affective symptoms, alexithymia, and perceived social support. No credible group differences emerged in the total or subscale scores of the IRI, Compassion Scale, or MAIA-2. Bayes-factor comparisons for the total scores favored models without group effects for the IRI (BF₀₁ = 3.43), Compassion Scale (BF₀₁ = 2.42), and MAIA-2 (BF₀₁ = 2.66), although the evidence was weak to moderate.

Despite these broadly comparable self-reported profiles, the association between interoceptive sensibility and compassion differed by injury status. Greater interoceptive sensibility was strongly associated with greater compassion in controls, whereas this association was credibly weaker in cSCI. Together, these findings indicate that chronic disruption of spinal bodily signaling is not necessarily accompanied by differences in self-reported empathic and compassionate dispositions, but may be associated with differences in how interoceptive sensibility relates to compassion.

The authors would like to thank all participants for their generous contribution to this study. We also gratefully acknowledge the support provided by Mutual de Seguridad throughout the development and implementation of this project. A.Z.-V was supported by the ANID grant No. 21231716.

This work was also supported by ANID/ FONDECYT regular No. 1241087 awarded to D.M.-P. Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile Antonia Zepeda Vergara, Kevin Blanco-Madariaga, Emilio Recart, Constanza Baquedano-Larraín & David Martínez-Pernía Correspondence to David Martínez-Pernía. The authors declare no competing interests.

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