Dominika Varga
Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Psychological Sciences
Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development
Birkbeck, University of London
Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development
Birkbeck, University of London
Vaghi Lab: https://www.vaghilab.org/
Bluesky: @dkvarga.bsky.social
ORCID: https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-5851-0498
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dominika-Varga-2
Bluesky: @dkvarga.bsky.social
ORCID: https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-5851-0498
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dominika-Varga-2
Research Interest
My research interest lies at the intersection between learning, memory, cognitive control, and predictive processing, aiming to understand how the brain flexibly integrates past and new experience to guide behaviour and cognition. My primary research methods include functional MRI, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (fMRS), and behavioural experiments, with a focus on examining brain and behaviour in naturalistic contexts (e.g., movie-watching paradigms, smart-phone based longitudinal learning tasks). As a postdoctoral researcher at the Vaghi Lab, I study how individual brain circuits support learning and cognitive control over time, applying precision functional mapping to identify how these processes adapt—or become dysregulated—in psychiatric disorders.
Education
2020-2023 PhD in Psychology - University of Sussex Funded by the School of Psychology; Supervisor: Professor Chris Bird Thesis title: Processing and remembering naturalistic experiences inconsistent with prior expectations
2015-2019 MSci in Psychology - University of York Degree award: Master of Science in Psychology with First Class Honours
Selected Publications
- Varga, D., Raykov, P., Jefferies, E., Ben-Yakov, A., Bird, C. (2025) Hippocampal mismatch signals are based on episodic memories and not schematic knowledge. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(34), e2503535122.
- Raykov, P., Varga D., Bird, C. (2023) False memories for ending of events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(12), 3459–3475 *Co-first authors
- Alam, T. R. G., Krieger-Redwood, K., Varga, D., Gao, Z., Horner, A. J., Hartley, T., ... & Jefferies, E. (2025). A double dissociation between semantic and spatial cognition in visual to default network pathways. Elife, 13, RP94902.
- Zhang, M., Bernhardt, B. C., Wang, X., Varga, D., Krieger-Redwood, K., Royer, J., ... & Jefferies, E. (2022). Perceptual coupling and decoupling of the default mode network during mind-wandering and reading. Elife, 11, e74011.
- Zhang, M., Varga, D., Wang, X., Krieger-Redwood, K., Gouws, A., Smallwood, J., & Jefferies, E. (2021). Knowing what you need to know in advance: The neural processes underpinning flexible semantic retrieval of thematic and taxonomic relations. NeuroImage, 224, 117405.
Prizes and Awards
Sussex Neuroscience Seed Fund – research grant to develop an event-related functional Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy analysis pipeline (University of Sussex, October 2024-March 2025).
Winner of the University of Sussex 3 Minute Thesis competition (June 2023).
Winner of the Sussex Neuroscience PhD Prize (University of Sussex, May 2023).
Brain Travel Award to attend the international Learning and Memory Conference 2023 Huntington Beach, California (Guarantors of Brain, March 2023).
Winner of the Departmental MSci Project Prize (Department of Psychology, University of York, July 2019).