Physiological learning theory.
Attention or "concentration" requires control of activity in those excess neurons that are not necessary for the present task. The control is probably not a massive inhibitory suppression but may be a recruiting process, a function of complex perceptual and associative learning that begins with early experience. Inhibition, however, may still be of crucial importance as a sharpener of associative mechanisms, and the child with minimal brain damage may have suffered a selective loss of inhibitory neurons.
D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D009433:Neural Inhibition; D009435:Synaptic Transmission; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology