Researchers, clinicians, mental health advocates and people living with bipolar disorder will converge today in Pittsburgh for two symposiums aimed at highlighting research, treatment and education about the illness.

More than 1,000 people from at least 40 countries have registered for the Seventh International Conference on Bipolar Disorder, which begins today at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. Sponsors for the world-renowned conference, which runs through Saturday, are the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC's Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

Also, Point Park University's seventh annual Childhood and Society Symposium will focus on "Bipolar Children: Cutting Edge Controversy, Insight and Research." Sessions will begin tomorrow and run through Saturday in the third-floor ballroom of Lawrence Hall at Point Park University, Downtown.

Both conferences will focus on research, diagnostic advances and therapies for a disorder that affects as many as 10 million people in the United States.

The Pitt conference will include speakers and presentations on the use of imaging technologies to study brain activity to devise effective treatments, said Dr. David J. Kupfer, chairman of the psychiatry department at the School of Medicine and Western Psych.

Other issues to be explored include genetic links to other diseases; increased rates of diabetes, heart disease and other ailments; and bipolar disorder in children and elderly people.

The Point Park symposium has been organized by psychology professor Sharna Olfman, who has written about children with bipolar disorder and her concerns over increasing numbers of diagnoses and uses of powerful psychiatric drugs. Clinicians and researchers will address drug company marketing and conflicts of interest, assessment and treatments, diagnostic guidelines and pressure from schools to medicate children, university spokeswoman Ginny Frizzi said.

More information about the Pitt symposium can be obtained at www.7thbipolar.org. More about the Point Park symposium can be found at www.pointpark.edu.