Areas of left perisylvian cortex mediate auditory-verbal short-term memory

► Study of verbal short-term memory (vSTM) and language in 200 brain lesion patients. ► Left inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortices critical for vSTM. ► Same areas also associated with deficits in language production and comprehension. ► vSTM relies on the neural substrates of language, not a specialized storage system.