Alison Preston and Lab

04/17/2026

Come find us this Sunday at the Thinkery's Spring into STEAM event!

Stop by the Preston Lab table to learn about our research, try a hands-on brain challenge, and hear what it's like to work in a neuroscience lab.

Learn more here:

Discover the power of STEAM through play at Thinkery’s seasonal STEAM Sundays! Families can dive into hands-on activities, themed story times, and expert-led pop-ups that celebrate Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math—all included with General Admission.

04/16/2026

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/

04/10/2026

Today, we're celebrating Owen Friend for officially defending his dissertation! 🎉

His committee called it the best dissertation defense talk they've ever seen. In four years, he completed seven studies (three behavioral, four neuroimaging), all focused on how children remember when things happen, and that doesn't even cover everything he accomplished during his time in lab!

We're so proud of you, Owen, and so glad that your family and friends could be there in person to celebrate with you.

Congratulations, Dr. Friend!

03/12/2026

Our lab had such a great time co-hosting a booth with the Church Lab at UT STEM Girl Day! It was a blast meeting so many curious kids and families and sharing the exciting research we’re doing on memory and brain development at UT Austin.

Did you miss our booth? You can learn more about the work we do on our website and find out how your child can participate in memory research at UT Austin.

Learn more about how to participate here: https://preston.clm.utexas.edu/participate

02/26/2026

🧠✨ The future of science starts here!

The Preston and Church Labs will have a booth at UT STEM Girl Day, a university-wide event hosted by Women in STEM at The University of Texas at Austin, with activities across campus.

Come visit our booth to:
➡️ Explore how memory works
➡️ Try out our pretend MRI machine
➡️ Meet our research team
➡️ Learn how your family can participate in real research at UT

We hope to see you there!

Learn more here: https://girlday.utexas.edu/

12/19/2025

Our Preston Lab 2025 Wrapped is here! 🎉

Hit play to see our year in review, including how many participants helped us study the developing brain, how many hours we spent in the scanner, and the movie that topped our teen participants' watch list.

Thank you to everyone who made this year possible. Our participants, our students, our collaborators. We can't wait to see what we discover together in 2026.

12/16/2025

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

12/04/2025

We love connecting with curious minds at UT Hot Science – Cool Talks, hosted by the UT Environmental Science Institute! 🔬

We always have fun sharing the wonders of science with our community & watching their interest spark!

Are you in the Austin area? Check it out: https://www.esi.utexas.edu/community-engagement/hot-science-cool-talks/

11/25/2025

In advance of Thanksgiving, we shared our gratitude for one another in lab meeting. Each lab member drew another lab member's name (gift exchange style). We wrote a message to them to read aloud about why we are grateful for them, what makes us proud of them, and all the ways they make the team stronger.

Hearing the messages was such a sweet, grounding moment. It reminded us how much we rely on one another, how much we grow because of each other, and just how awesome every member of this lab truly is.

I'm truly grateful for this team and how our support of one another makes the science we do possible 💛🧠

11/21/2025

Did you know that encouraging children & teens to manage their schedules independently has positive impacts for their memory? 📅🧠 Our new study reveals that age and independence combine to enhance memory development.

When younger children are asked to describe a typical day in their lives, they mostly describe the order of events, using words like "then" and "before."

Older children and teens talk less about order and instead describe their experiences in terms of schedules and routines.

We found that independence predicted how individuals recalled their lived experience. So children and teens who managed time more independently in their daily lives (getting themselves up, managing their own routines) used more sophisticated temporal language when recalling their experiences.

Overall, our findings suggest that independence predicts memory abilities in ways that age alone doesn't capture.

Do you study memory development? We created a survey tool to help quantify how independently children manage their time in everyday life.

Learn more and ready the full study here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/68bqk_v1

11/19/2025

What an incredible Society for Neuroscience meeting this year! Lab members Omer, Nicole, and Owen brought their A-game to their poster sessions, drawing engaged crowds as they shared their recent work on how kids and adults remember when things happen, how memory changes impact reasoning, and how we learn context-dependent behaviors.

Beyond the science, it was wonderful to reconnect with colleagues and former students, celebrate with amazing women in neuroscience, and soak in the energy of researchers from across the field. From lively discussions on the poster floor to the obligatory photo op at the iconic SfN sign, this conference reminded us why we love what we do.

So proud of this team!

11/14/2025

The Preston Lab will be at Society for Neuroscience in San Diego! Come see what we've been working on 🧠

We'll be discussing how kids & adults remember when things happen, how changes in memory representation across the lifespan impact reasoning & how we learn that different actions have different consequences based on the setting.

Find us Monday & Wednesday 🤘