The ability to regulate emotion is a crucial process that humans utilize in order to adapt to the demands of environmental constraints. Individuals exposed to early adverse life events such as being born at an extremely low birth weight (ELBW, 501–1000？g) are known to have problems regulating emotion which have been linked to the development of psychopathology in this population. Recent studies have used psychophysiological measures, such as electroencephalogram (EEG) and cardiac vagal tone, to index emotion regulatory processes. The purpose of this paper was three-fold: (1) to investigate the relation between ELBW and emotion regulation issues (pathway 1), (2) to review studies investigating the relation between early emotion regulation and later internalizing problems (pathway 2); and (3) to provide a model in which two psychophysiological measures (i.e., frontal EEG asymmetry and cardiac vagal tone) are suggested to understand the proposed conceptual pathways in the relation between ELBW and psychopathology. 1. General Introduction Emotions are complex processes that humans use to evaluate the environment, recognize environmental changes, and adjust behaviors according to environmental demands [1]. They are an integral part of human life and have important inter- and intrapersonal functions [2]. Interpersonally, emotions function as signals to others about our internal states and intentions. The intrapersonal functions of emotions give us pertinent information, which we use to make decisions about environmental stressors. Emotions and their regulation involve cognitive, behavioral, and physiological components. Interactions among these provide one with emotion-specific action tendencies and eventually facilitate explicit action, which can be adaptive or maladaptive [3]. How emotions can be effectively regulated is the topic of significant debate. Of particular interest has been how their dysregulation can lead to problems with adaptive behaviour, and how emotion dysregulatory processes affect the risk for adverse mental and physical health outcomes [3]. Normal development of emotion regulation leads to successful adaptations to the demands of environmental constraints. What is less known is how pervasive problems with emotional regulation, as indexed by psychophysiological measures, can contribute to the development of mental health problems and how early experience shapes these processes. Early adversity has been defined as early exposure to environmental conditions that negatively impact normative human development [4]. In particular, these adverse
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