A recent research showed that people can be taught fearlessness. Researchers believe that it may be possible to learn not to be afraid, a condition he calls "learned safety". In the study a tone associated to safety by mice, had same effect on the animals as antidepressants during stressful conditions. This study was led Dr Eric Kandel of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Columbia University in New York.

In the study, mice were conditioned to associate both safety and danger with specific sounds. Mice conditioned to safety in stressful situations, such as being forced to swim, were able to overcome the "sense of hopelessness" that engulfed non-conditioned mice. Researchers claim that this conditioning process is as effective as the anti-depressant Prozac. 
 
Kandel said that to make a mouse depressed, researchers used a method favored by drug companies called learned helplessness. The animals were put into a pool of water and it can't get out. Soon gives up and it stops swimming and it just floats. When the animals were given an antidepressant, it starts swimming again. When the tone associated with safety was played it started to swim again just as it did with the antidepressant.  

Researchers found out that the tone and an antidepressant drug worked synergistically. The study of brain of mouse showed that use of the conditioned "safety" tone activated a different pathway than the drugs did.  

Researchers explained that the tone affected dopamine, while antidepressants work on serotonin. Both are message-carrying molecules called neurotransmitters. Moreover the conditioning also affected a compound called brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF —which helps nourish and encourages the growth of brain cells. But the learned safety did not affect serotonin. 

Kandal said: "Learning involves alterations in the brain and gene expression. Psychotherapy is only a form of learning."  

He added that this study shows that effectiveness of psychotherapy, meditation and other stress-reduction tools may be, and it could help in the design of new drugs.

Kandel said: "This opens up new pathways that may profitable."