Magnetisation of red blood cells: a Brownian Dynamics Simulation

A model to calculate the magnetisation of deoxyhemoglobin of human blood by means of Brownian dynamics simulations is presented. We consider a system made up of dipolar magnetic spheres, which can interact but do not overlap. Particles are exposed to external magnetic fields to compute the magnetisation curve, which exhibit a Langevin-like behaviour. The magnetic susceptibility of the erythrocytes and completely deoxygenated whole blood are Xp = 1.61 x 10-6(SI) and XWB = -4.46 x 10-6(SI), respectively, which are in good agreement to experimental data and theoretical calculations. Moreover, we also compute the paramagnetic component of the susceptibility of erythrocytes that in our simulations normal blood from beta thalassemia major samples could be differentiated.