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Scientists found a single dose of the protein Hi1a worked on lab rats.

They said it showed "great promise as a future stroke treatment" but had not yet been tested in human trials.

The Stroke Association said the research was at its early stages but it would "welcome any treatment that has the potential to reduce the damage caused by stroke".

The researchers, from the University of Queensland and Monash University, travelled to Fraser Island in Australia to hunt for and capture three potentially deadly Australian funnel web spiders.

"We regularly collect spiders from Fraser Island off the south coast of Queensland," explained lead researcher Prof Glenn King.

he team then took the spiders back to their laboratory "for milking".

This involved coaxing the spider to release its venom, which could then be sucked up using pipettes.

Next the scientists dissected the venom gland of the spiders and honed in on a protein in the venom to recreate a version of it in their lab.

They then injected this Hi1a into the lab rats.

They found that the protein blocked acid-sensing ion channels in the brain - something the researchers say are key drivers of brain damage after stroke.

Prof King said the protein showed "great promise as a future stroke treatment".

"We believe that we have, for the first time, found a way to minimise the effects of brain damage after a stroke.

"Hi1a even provides some protection to the core brain region most affected by oxygen deprivation, which is generally considered unrecoverable due to the rapid cell death caused by stroke."

The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Why look to spider venom in the first place? Prof King explains:

"My lab is interested in developing drugs for human nervous system disorders. Many of these disorders involve either dysfunctional ion channels (e.g. epilepsy) or over-active ion channels (chronic pain and stroke).

Thus, we are typically looking for molecules that modulate the activity of ion channels. The venoms of small venomous invertebrates such as spiders, centipedes and scorpions have evolved to target the nervous system of insects, and consequently they are absolutely full of ion channel modulators.

Because the human nervous system is more complex and wired differently to insects, ion channel modulators that kill or paralyse insects can actually be beneficial to humans. Thus, looking in venoms for ion channel drugs is not as weird as it seems."