Abstract
Research and clinical experience leave little doubt that music influences neural processing. Trained music therapists harness this ability to effect therapeutic change across multiple treatment domains. This chapter provides an overview of music perception, reviews general principles pertinent to understanding the influence of music on brain functions, and explores neurologic foundations underlying music-based interventions in the motor, emotional, cognitive, communicative, and social domains. Implications are discussed for how these connections between music and non-music neural processing support and inform music therapy practice.