Alison Preston and Lab

The Preston Lab is representing at the 2026 Girls in STEM Conference hosted by Girlstart this weekend!

Molly Pierce and Amina Shmanova will be speaking to 4th-8th grade girls from the Austin area about their personal journeys in STEM, what inspired them to pursue science, and what it’s like working and training in research today.

We’re so proud to support events that empower and inspire the next generation of scientists!

Learn more about Girlstart and the Girls in STEM Conference: https://girlstart.org/our-programs/girls-in-stem-conference/

Ever wonder why your teen can ace a test but then seem completely lost when they need to apply that knowledge somewhere new? New research from our lab may help explain why.

We scanned kids, teens, and adults in the MRI while they played a spatial memory game with friendly monsters. What we found is that the part of the brain that helps us build flexible mental maps of the world is still maturing through adolescence.

Adults in our study could navigate accurately even when the environment shifted. Kids and teens had to relearn locations after each change because their brains are still holding onto each experience separately rather than building one connected map they can use across situations.

One takeaway for parents might be: When our kids struggle to transfer learning from one situation to another, it's not laziness or carelessness. Their brains are still building the architecture for flexible thinking, and that takes time.

If you want to read more about the science, you can read the full paper here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.11.693744v1