Neural plasticity: The substratum of music-based interventions in neurorehabilitation.

BACKGROUND The plastic nature of the human brain lends itself to experience and training-based structural changes leading to functional recovery. Music, with its multimodal activation of the brain, serves as a useful model for neurorehabilitation through neuroplastic changes in dysfunctional or impaired networks. Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) contributes to the field of neurorehabilitation using this rationale. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this article is to present a discourse on the concept of neuroplasticity and music-based neuroplasticity through the techniques of NMT in the domain of neurological rehabilitation. METHODS The article draws on observations and findings made by researchers in the areas of neuroplasticity, music-based neuroplastic changes, NMT in neurological disorders and the implication of further research in this field. RESULTS A commentary on previous research reveal that interventions based on the NMT paradigm have been successfully used to train neural networks using music-based tasks and paradigms which have been explained to have cross-modal effects on sensorimotor, language and cognitive and affective functions. CONCLUSIONS Multimodal gains using music-based interventions highlight the brain plasticity inducing function of music. Individual differences do play a predictive role in neurological gains associated with such interventions. This area deserves further exploration and application-based studies.