Neural regions essential for reading and spelling of words and pseudowords.

Objective: To identify dysfunctional brain regions critical for impaired reading/spelling of words/pseudowords by evaluating acute stroke patients on lexical tests and magnetic resonance imaging, before recovery or reorganization of structure-function relationships.

Methods: A series of 106 consenting patients were administered oral reading and spelling tests within 24 hours of left supratentorial stroke onset. Patients underwent diffusion- and perfusion-weighted magnetic resonance examination the same day to identify regions of hypoperfusion/infarct of 16 Brodmann areas.

Testing conclusions from functional imaging of working memory with data from acute stroke.

Functional imaging studies indicate that the left hemisphere mediates verbal working memory, while the right hemisphere mediates both verbal and spatial working memory. We evaluated acute stroke patients with working memory tests and imaging to identify whether unilateral dysfunction causes deficits in spatial and/or verbal working memory deficits. While left cortical stroke patients had verbal working memory impairments (p<0.