Aphasia is a prevalent cognitive syndrome caused by stroke. The rarity of premorbid imaging and heterogeneity of lesion obscures the links between the local effects of the lesion, global anatomic network organization, and aphasia symptoms. We applied a simulated attack approach in humans to examine the effects of 39 stroke lesions (16 females) on anatomic network topology by simulating their effects in a control sample of 36 healthy (15 females) brain networks. We focused on measures of global network organization thought to support overall brain function and resilience in the whole brain and within the left hemisphere. After removing lesion volume from the network topology measures and behavioral scores [the Western Aphasia Battery Aphasia Quotient (WAB-AQ), four behavioral factor scores obtained from a neuropsychological battery, and a factor sum], we compared the behavioral variance accounted for by simulated poststroke connectomes to that observed in the randomly permuted data. Global measures of anato...