New evidence shows that the human brain can manufacture fresh brain cells, researchers say in a study that may lead to better ways to treat brain damage and disease.

Scientists had known that other animals, such as rats and mice, make new brain cells throughout their lives and there had been indirect evidence that humans beings can, too.

Using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans and electron microscope images of tissue donated from the brains of people who died, Maurice Curtis of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Peter Eriksson of Sahlgrenska Academy in Goteborg, Sweden, and colleagues found the elusive cells.