Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of patients with multiple sclerosis provides only limited insights into the nature of brain tissue damage with modest clinical-radiological correlations. In this study, quantitative and semi-quantitative MRI techniques (T1, T2, T2*, MTR) were applied to study the potential of the MRI-accessible microstructural information to predict cognitive and motor scores in patients. A multiparametric analysis of whole brain abnormalities showed that MRI measures of microstructural alterations lead to significant improvement in clinical-radiological correlations even in the presence of minor functional deficits.