The European group MAGNIMS periodically publishes guidelines for using MRI in the diagnosis of MS that are updated as MRI technology evolves. Moreover, new MRI techniques, such as double inversion recovery imaging or phase sensitive inversion recovery, can be used to identify more lesions in MS which, if further validated, could be included in future criteria. Another promising MRI technique is magnetic transfer imaging, which will allow the detection of damage in normal-appearing brain tissue away from focal lesions. Finally, high resolution spectral domain optical coherence tomography could prove to be a very promising and sensitive way of identifying optic neuritis in the future.