Scientists at the University of Lethbridge say they have successfully regrown adult brain cells in tests on mice, a breakthrough that could lead to treatment of neural diseases such as Alzheimer's.

"We're pretty excited by it," said Dr. Robert Sutherland, who led the five-year project at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience.

"In just the same way as people have been able to regenerate pieces of skin that have been damaged, we've been able to do that in a part of the brain," Sutherland told CBC News.

In the study, brain cells were destroyed in mice, which were then treated with a naturally occurring growth factor and behavioural and memory exercises.

According to Sutherland, the three-part treatment allowed the cells to regrow, and after six weeks of treatment, those mice fared just as well as those in a control group.

"We discovered the memory disorder [in the mice] was reversed," Sutherland said. "It was gone. The memory was as good as normal."

Dr. Simon Spanswick, one of the primary researchers involved in the project, said the implications of the cell regrowth research are vast.

"Things like Alzheimer's disease, a number of memory diseases … dementia for example, Parkinson's disease, what we've discovered will be part of a treatment process for these disorders," he said.

Researchers couldn't say when their research can start to be applied to humans. However, the Canadian Institute for Health Research has renewed funding for the research for another five years.