Monte Carlo simulations of Donnan equilibrium in cartilage.

23Na magnetic resonance imaging and the delayed gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging methods to investigate cartilage can be used to determine the fixed charge density of cartilage. The methods give results that differ by a factor of 2. In this study, we use Monte Carlo simulations on a model system of cartilage and find that the difference originates from the Coulombic intermolecular interactions between the ions in the cartilage, and in the synovial fluid. Those interactions are neglected in the standard Donnan analysis that generally is adopted to evaluate magnetic resonance imaging data.