Likewise, there are many hypothesised factors at work in asthma and AHR, and determining their relative impact and interactions cannot be obtained by studying a single scale alone. For example, much effort has focused on the role of airway smooth muscle (ASM) dynamics or function (i.e. [16e21])1 and airway remodelling (e.g. [22e28]), though certainly other theories abound (i.e. [29e33]). Many of these are thought not only to work in isolation, but also to have potential synergies between them. As such, it becomes fundamentally necessary to link events at the smallest scales with those at the largest, to determine the inte- grative behaviour and overall function and outcome.
There are several important modelling studies considering these types of multiscale interactions. In the following sections we review the purpose, scope, and important findings of several of these studies.