# Programmatically accessing Human ISH

**URL:** <https://community.brain-map.org/t/programmatically-accessing-human-ish/4171>\
**Category:** Technical\
**Tags:** api, atlas-human-brain-adult, allensdk\
**Created:** [February 19, 2025, 3:34pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/programmatically-accessing-human-ish/4171 "2025-02-19T15:34:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MPanday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@MPanday](https://community.brain-map.org/u/MPanday)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 3:34pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/programmatically-accessing-human-ish/4171/1 "2025-02-19T15:34:53Z")

</div>

Hi there,

I’m working with the Allen Human Brain ISH database, and I’m trying to retrieve large amounts of image data for a neuroanatomy project involving cell morphologies.

I know from my previous work with the mouse brain ISH that there is a jupyter notebook linked [here](https://allensdk.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_static/examples/nb/image_download.html#Listing-images-from-an-atlas-(or-section-data-set)) that works to retrieve and organize images along with their metadata.

I have not been able to do this with the human ISH database. Every time I supply human experiment IDs, the code throws several errors, and cannot connect or find the datasets in question.

Is there a way to programmatically access human ISH data without downloading single images manually from the database?

Please let me know.

Thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tylermo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/community.brain-map.org/tylermo/32/155_2.png) [@tylermo](https://community.brain-map.org/u/tylermo)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2025, 4:29pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/programmatically-accessing-human-ish/4171/2 "2025-02-21T16:29:01Z")

</div>

Hi Maheshwar,

Can you share some of the errors you’re getting?

Tyler

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lana](https://community.brain-map.org/u/lana)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2025, 7:04pm UTC](https://community.brain-map.org/t/programmatically-accessing-human-ish/4171/3 "2025-05-20T19:04:34Z")

</div>

Hi @tylermo

I’m currently working on a project with the human brain ISH data from the visual cortex in the cortex study. I have been having troubles downloading the images and I came across this post which seems to the same error I am having.

I have tried modifying the Python code provided in the Downloading Images file: [image\_download](https://allensdk.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_static/examples/nb/image_download.html)

I haven’t been able to successfully download the images because the dataset ID is not available for the samples that I’m working with. I tried to replace the dataset ID with the specimen ID, but this isn’t returning anything because the section\_image\_query() function requires a dataset ID. Using the specimen links (like this one, for example: [Specimen Detail :: Allen Brain Atlas: Human Brain](https://human.brain-map.org/ish/specimen/show/78677751)), I downloaded the specimen-specific XML files and tried to find a dataset ID but it doesn’t exist, so this method of downloading doesn’t work for these examples.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated, thanks!