Alexander ("Lex") Rudolf Cools (1941 in The Hague – 7 September 2013 in Nijmegen) was a Dutch behavioral pharmacologist.

He obtained his Ph.D. under the supervision of Jacques van Rossum and Jo Vossen in 1973 at the Radboud University Nijmegen,[1] where he was a professor from 1985 until his retirement in 2006.

[2][3] In 2014, a special issue of the scientific journal Behavioural Pharmacology was dedicated to his memory.

[4] Cools was one of the founders of the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society and its second president.

[3] In 1976, Cools was the first to propose the existence of different types of dopamine receptors,[5] an essentially correct claim that initially was generally dismissed.