Previous research suggests the presence of subtle semantic decline in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. This study investigated associations between amyloid burden, a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease, and tasks of semantic impairment in older individuals without dementia. A systematic search in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase yielded 3691 peer-reviewed articles excluding duplicates. After screening, 41 studies with overall 7495 participants were included in the meta-analysis and quality assessment. The overall weighted effect size of the association between larger amyloid burden and larger semantic impairment was 0.10 (95% CI [−0.03; 0.22], p = 0.128) for picture naming, 0.19 (95% CI [0.11; 0.27], p < 0.001) for semantic fluency, 0.15 (95% CI [−0.15; 0.45], p = 0.326) for vocabulary, and 0.10 (95% CI [−0.14; 0.35], p = 0.405; 2 studies) for WAIS Information. Risk of bias was highest regarding comparability, as effect sizes were often not calculated on covariate-adjusted statistics. The relevance of the indicated amyloid-related decline in semantic fluency for research and clinical applications is likely negligible due to the effect’s small magnitude. Future research should develop more sensitive metrics of semantic fluency to optimize its use for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease-related cognitive impairment.

先前的研究表明，在阿尔茨海默病的早期阶段存在细微的语义衰退。这项研究调查了淀粉样蛋白负荷（阿尔茨海默氏病的生物标志物）与没有痴呆症的老年人的语义障碍任务之间的关联。在 MEDLINE、PsycINFO 和 Embase 中进行系统搜索，得到 3691 篇经过同行评审的文章，不包括重复文章。筛选后，共有 7495 名参与者的 41 项研究被纳入荟萃分析和质量评估。较大淀粉样蛋白负荷与较大语义障碍之间关联的总体加权效应大小 对于图片命名为 0.10 (95% CI [−0.03; 0.22], p = 0.128)，0.19 (95% CI [0.11; 0.27], p  < 0.001) 语义流畅性，0.15 (95% CI [−0.15; 0.45], p = 0.326) 用于词汇，0.10 (95% CI [−0.14; 0.35], p  = 0.405; 2 项研究) 用于 WAIS 信息。在可比性方面，偏倚风险最高，因为效果大小通常不是根据协变量调整后的统计数据计算的。由于影响幅度较小，研究和临床应用中与淀粉样蛋白相关的语义流畅性下降的相关性可能可以忽略不计。未来的研究应该开发更敏感的语义流畅性指标，以优化其用于早期检测阿尔茨海默病相关认知障碍的用途。